Save paper -> Save trees -> Save the planet!

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The Problem with Paper

Trees are good. We need them. Apart from everything else they offer like shade and homes for wildlife one of the most important things they do is photosynthesise. When a tree is growing it photosynthesises and draws large amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere. And once they're fully grown, trees act as storehouses for CO₂.

If you cut them down trees can no longer help manage greenhouse gases. And though there's many reasons why they are cut down papermaking is one of the worst. The problem with turning trees into paper doesn't end with the loss of the tree. Making paper uses large amounts of water and large amounts of energy - energy which usually comes from greenhouse-gas-emitting, fossil fuel generators.

Not only that, when the paper ends up in landfill - as most of it does - it breaks down anaerobically (without oxygen, because it's buried) and produces methane. In terms of danger to the environment, methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas than CO₂. Between methane & CO₂ we're talking about 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases produced for every tonne of paper used.

In Australia over 30 million trees are cut down each year just for writing and printing paper and a significant amount of these trees are taken from native forests.

One of the best things you can do to help save our planet is to switch to recycled paper for all of your printing as well as generally reducing the amount of paper you use.

The Easy Solutions

Using recycled paper instead of paper made from wood pulp can make a huge difference to the environment. Have a look a what can be saved for each tonne of recycled paper used:

31,780 litres of water
4100 KwH of electricity
75% less chlorinated bleach (doesn't impact on global warming but it does produce nasty dioxins)
13 trees
4 cubic metres of landfill
2 .5 barrels of oil

Recycled paper comes from two broad sources - post consumer waste and pre consumer waste. Basically, post consumer waste is paper that has already been used and collected for recycling. Pre consumer waste on the other hand is paper that hasn't yet been used, such as offcuts and waste from printers and paper mills.

I went to my local Officeworks store and found two brands of 100% recycled paper (try to get 100%). They were:

Evolve which is made in UK and comes from 100% post consumer waste
Canon 100 (also called Nautilus) which is made in Austria from 50/50 pre and post consumer waste
Also look for 'Best of Triotec' aka 'e-copy' or 'Officeworks Recycled' and Cyclus.

Apart from using recycled paper wherever possible, you should also try to recycle the paper you use. This has the immediate benefit of reducing landfill (and methane production) plus provides greater material for quality recycled paper to be produced.

Try this: For the rest of today make a mental note (because paper is bad!) of all the paper you use or come across as you go about your normal daily activity. As you do this think about whether it would be possible to refuse, reduce, reuse or recycle each of the pieces of paper you handle.

Refuse - put a 'no junk mail' sticker on your letter box, avoid products with excess packaging, change from electronic to paper statements and accounts from your bank and utility companies.
Reduce - Print only what you really need, Use email rather than fax, Print double sided and store documents in electronic form.
Reuse - Use unwanted printouts as notepaper and for printing draft copies. Use shredded paper as packaging instead of buying other forms of packing material. Sell or give away old books and magazines to second hand dealers, libraries, hospitals or charities. Reuse or return cardboard boxes.
Recycle - Set up a container for paper recycling at home, the office or at school, especially next to photocopiers, printers and fax machines. Try to minimise contamination as it may result in the paper being unusable and ending up in landfill anyway. Remove all staples, string, paper clips, metal foil, plastic material, sticky tape, latex, food remnants, grit and dirt from paper before recycling it.

Essential Details

Cost to make this change - recycled printing paper is around the same price as regular quality printing paper.
Time to make this change - Just make it a part of your day to look for opportunities to save paper. For example: While I was signed in to my internet banking last night I noticed an option that allowed me to stop receiving paper statements. It took me less than a minute to select the option to receive statements via email.
Benefits to you - The biggest benefit has got to be the feel good factor, but there really isn't a downside so why wouldn't you save paper?
Benefits to the environment - Huge water and energy savings, Forests saved, Biodiversity maintained, Prevention of dioxins being produced etc etc

Tools & Resources on Saving Paper

Sources

www.acfonline.org.au, www.cleanup.com.au
Check out this cool and innovative software that helps you save paper use in your printer: http://www.printgreener.com/download.html

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