One small step - do we really need a newspaper?

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One small step - do we really need a newspaper?
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Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 9:33 am Post subject: One small step - do we really need a newspaper?

I don't buy a daily one - I read a book rather than the Metro - I listen to Today in the morning while I get ready for work, and check the BBC or newspaper sites during the day (and have BBC alerts which are very handy), and I watch a bit of the news in the evening sometimes. I think I'm as well informed as most people I know (except for people on here!).

So the only paper we regularly buy is a Saturday Telegraph for the TV guide, and the gardening and cookery section. But again, I can get that all online, and we throw half of it straight in the recycling while the rest clogs up the house for weeks because we never seem to get around to both of us reading it.

So as of last week, we're not buying a newspaper any more.

A small step, certainly (especially as I still have a small magazine habit), but one in the right direction...

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 9:36 am Post subject:
I only really buy a sunday broadsheet or two. But the thing I find is that internet news sites sort of miss out on the in depth stuff.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45676
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 9:36 am Post subject:
I don't buy a newspaper anymore, used to get the times but it got bigger and bigger and bigger till it made me feel sick, just use online news services now.

Silas

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 6848
Location: Staffordshire

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 9:44 am Post subject:
I have to buy a newspaper. They now charge for the Telegraph crossword on line

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 10:08 am Post subject:

When commuting by Public Transport I have always bought a newspaper or generally two, one going, one coming back.

These days, IF you have time to sit down and read it, I still think a broadsheet is a good way of really keeping up with at least some things that are happening in the world. Though there are any number of important things ignored by even the best of the broadsheets.

But I find myself too busy even on Sundays, to really do justice to a paper, and so they rarely get bought. Must admit I really do miss the Observer Everyman cryptic crossword

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 10:10 am Post subject:
We buy the local paper and one of the weekend papers. That does us for all our firelighting needs from one week to the next. In the Summer, we have fewer fires, so we drop the weekend paper until it starts getting cold again .

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 10:14 am Post subject:
I buy a paper every day. One of the reasons I shifted to the Indie was its lack of redundant sections (from my point of view). And I make paper logs now so I figure that's OK.

moogie

Joined: 02 Feb 2005
Posts: 525
Location: Near Bridgend

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 10:26 am Post subject:
Doh, read the title and thought Downsizer had expanded enough to start their own daily newspaper Don't read the papers at all. I used to read the times but like Tahir said, it got so big it got unmanagable. And I don't have time or the inclination to read who said what and who is doing what. Life goes on regardless.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 10:32 am Post subject:

moogie wrote:

Doh, read the title and thought Downsizer had expanded enough to start their own daily newspaper

Don't read the papers at all. I used to read the times but like Tahir said, it got so big it got unmanagable. And I don't have time or the inclination to read who said what and who is doing what. Life goes on regardless.

Even a paper newsletter has been rejected on environmental grounds

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 11:53 am Post subject:

Yes, you need a newspaper.

You can light fires, bbqs, chimenias and woodburners with them, you can make paper pots out of them, you can shred them to stop the worm bin getting too wet, and to stop the grass cuttings going slimy in the compost. You can put them in planting holes for greedy plants and mulch weeds with them. I beleive some people even read them.

seriously, we don't have a newspaper, except the free one, which we have been known to fight over in the winter. I realise that this is not quite recycling, and plan to get a shredder so that we can shred all our other paper for some of the uses.

Anyone got a use for glossy paper - can you compost that?

boff

Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 354
Location: Still alive and kicking

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 11:56 am Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

Anyone got a use for glossy paper - can you compost that?

I seem to remember someone saying that the ink was an issue with glossy stuff - think it contains something nasty

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 12:57 pm Post subject:
depends what you read I suppose, in my opinion, quite a lot of what's printed on glossy paper's pretty nasty!

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 5:31 pm Post subject:
I used to get the Times on a Sunday for the TV guide primarily , then the paper itself and the magazine, and realised all the other stuff ended up in the recycling. I then tried the Express but got turned off by their pre election coverage. I always like to get the local paper to find out the farmers' markets, cinema, gigs etc, if they did a TV guide I wouldn't bother buying anything else.

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 6:19 pm Post subject: newspaper

all we have is the saturday east anglian now...no time to sit and read the newspaper every day and it takes all week to read a sunday paper from front to back anyway and we just don't have that sort of free time

but you have to hae one paper a week i think to light the fire with and make all thepaper pots etc as spoken about above

it wouldn't take much for all newspapers to become redundant and there are some that certainly should be

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 10:57 am Post subject:

CAT have done tests on newspaper &c and found that the inks used in printing contain toxins at such low levels as to be no problem. And the coating on glossy paper is a chalky substance that is actually beneficila in a compost heap! All this from a chap who came to speak to a local gardening club about composting from CAT. So screw it up and chuck it in! By the way, he also said that all paper/card should be screwed up loosely before composting.

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