Originally Posted by JJs

well, I live in the middle of the 'pine belt' where trees, just like soybeans, wheat, corn, etc, are grown as a CROP - from seedling to paper mill = 12 years.... the terrain is not conducive to "regular" crops - lots of hills and hollers, ridges and valleys, and pine trees make a great 'crop' - the trees go to the lumber yards or pulp mills.. the lumber yards are mostly closed now because of the housing crises - so trees are only going to the pulp mills, which have also gone down, the unemployment rate here is around 19%...
so go ahead and wad up those napkins - keep somebody in a job....

I guess one of my pet peeves is people automatically assuming that all paper products come from beautiful forests being decimated instead of a cash crop....

Agreed! We have that here in Arkansas as well. And, since Global Warming is in the hot seat for fraud right now, we can at least have less of a guilty conscience 'bout it. LOL!
oh, and after clearcutting (which mostly is NOT done here) replanting is usually done within a month or so - so in another 12 years, there's another crop...