YESTERDAY'S NEWS TOMORROW'S BEDDING

The opening scene of the Lou Grant Show showed the short life cycle of a newspaper from point of origin to lining the bottom of someone's bird cage.

That scene is being recreated on a more portentous scale as newspaper recyclers have started "pasturizing" yesterday's news as bedding for cattle and other farm animals. Some experiments have taken the recycling another step further, testing the newsprint's suitability as a feed supplement for cattle.

The current green revolution and restrictions for sanitary landfills are compelling companies to examine innovations in the paper recycling arena. Part of the solution for newsprint recycling may be out standing the fields.

Scientists and agriculture specialists think cattle may become involved in the recycling movement directly. Yesterday's news has created the most interest among farmers as an alternative bedding material. Compared to straw or sawdust, shredded newsprint provides farmers with high absorbency, fast decomposition, easy handling, reduction in bacteria and absence of weed seeds, according to a Virginia project.

The main drawback can be cost. Farmers working on a narrow profit margin look cautiously at operation changes that do not feature cost saving measures.

"If you are paying $50 a ton for baled straw to bed your cows, recycled newspapers look like a good bargain," said Barry Steevens, state extension dairy specialist with the University of Missouri-Columbia. "It's safe, cheap and works well."

Missouri has a glut of used newspapers since the cost of shipping to distant processors and de-inking can be prohibitive.

"There's no market for waste newsprint now," said Leonard Langston, head of Concord Publishing printing division, which produces the Southeast Missourian. "We use to get $30 to $40 a ton for it. Now newspapers, especially on the East Coast pay to have it hauled off." Newsprint from end rolls, press waste and rack returns, which amounts to 20,000 to 30,000 pounds monthly, is taken to St. Louis processors for recycling into various products.

"The motivating factor for farmers will be economics," Steevens said. "If farmers find it is a cheaper source of bedding, adaptation will occur quickly."

Roger Friedrich, who operates Heartland Resource Recovery at 16 S. Frederick St., is attempting to develop a newsprint bedding program locally. "The market has potential," he said. "It will involve getting the message out, talking with the extension people and the cattle and dairy farmers."

Friedrich is working on processing equipment, including modifying a hay baling machine to bundle the shredded print. Bagging may be an alternative. He said farmers prefer package units that weigh 30 pounds or less for handling ease.

The newspaper will be shredded, not ground, for bovine bedding. Research shows that pieces between two and ten square inches work best.

Steevens said another advantage of the newsprint as bedding is that the scrapings dissipate more quickly in the fields after spreading and can be composted and sold to gardeners as organic soil conditioner.

Wisconsin researchers figure in their field experiments that farmers use about 50 tons of shredded paper bedding per cow annually. Missouri's 220,000 dairy cows would utilize 11 million tons of the waste paper at that rate.

The other alternative to use newsprint waste, as supplemental cattle feed, is getting mixed reviews so far as a way to beef up feed rations.

"Newspaper has a value of 35 to 40 percent total digestible nutrients, a little less than old tall fescue grass," Stevens said. "Cattle are ruminants, and they can use the fiber. Newspapers should make up no more than 30 percent of a cow's diet though." In contrast, cardboard ranks about 60 percent in digestible nutrients, according to Penn State University research by R.S. Adams.

Monty Kerley, agriculture nutrition specialist with the University of Missouri-Columbia, said University of Illinois research has not yet produced usable data on its value as feed. The two year study is still in its first stages.