What’s In Your Paper
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Green Press Initiative
- “Cradle To Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
- “Paper and Craft: 25 Charming Gifts, Accents, and Accessories to Make from Paper” by Minhee Cho and Truman Cho
- “Paper (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)” by Alexandra Fix
- “Alchemy Arts: Recycling is Chic” by Kate MacKay
* Buy eBooks to save paper
Eco Tips / Take Action
- Buying toilet paper and tissues made from recycled paper is one of the most eco-friendly purchasing decisions you can make. If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees.
- If every household in the United States replaced just one box of virgin fiber facial tissues (175 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 163,000 trees. (source: NRDC.org)
- The bleaching of paper, whether virgin or recycled, is the leading cause of toxic water pollution in the United States. (source: San Mateo County RecycleWorks)
- Each 20 cases of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 390 gallons of oil, 7,000 gallons of water, and 4,100 kwh of energy. It also eliminates 60 pounds of air-polluting emissions. (source: San Mateo County RecycleWorks)
- Paper recycled into other products does not take up space in landfills. Paper recycling means fewer trees cut down to make paper from new materials. Recycled paper needs less bleaching than paper from virgin trees. This means less use of toxic chemicals in the manufacturing process.
- Cardboard can be manufactured from 100% recycled paper. If you are interested in saving energy, choose packaged products at the grocery store made from recycled paperboard and buy recycled cardboard for your boxing purposes.
- Forests store 50% of the world’s terrestrial carbon. (In other words, they are important “carbon sinks” that hold onto pollution that would otherwise lead to global warming).
- Half the world’s forests have already been cleared or burned, and 80% of what’s left has been seriously degraded.
- The paper industry is the 4th largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions among US manufacturing industries.
- Paper accounts for 25% of landfill waste (and one third of municipal landfill waste).
- If the United States cut office paper use by just 10% it would prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases — the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road.
- Compared to using virgin wood, paper made with 100% recycled content uses 44% less energy, produces 38% less greenhouse gas emissions, 41% less particulate emissions, 50% less wastewater, 49% less solid waste and — of course — 100% less wood.
- To print a Sunday edition of the New York Times it takes 75,000 trees.
- Recycling one ton of paper saves 682.5 gallons of oil (think about that next time you?re standing at the pump).
- Printing and writing papers use the least amount of recycled content — just 6%. Tissues use the most, at 45%, and newsprint is not far behind, at 32%.
- Demand for recycled paper will exceed supply by 1.5 million tons of recycled pulp per year within 10 years.
- China, India and the rest of Asia are the fastest growing per-capita users of paper, but they still rank far behind Eastern Europe and Latin America (about 100 pounds per person per year), Australia (about 300 pounds per person per year) and Western Europe (more than 400 pounds per person per year).
- When you buy paper, look for packaging that displays the chasing arrows within a circle. This indicates that the paper contains recycled content. The symbol is often confused with the chasing arrows symbol, which simply indicates that a product may be recycled.
- Recycled paper can be turned into unexpected finished products. When you plant a seedling or pick up a carton of eggs, you are using containers manufactured from recycled paper. If you filter a cup of coffee or put on a dust mask, you’ve handled products made from recycled paper. In fact, the EPA estimates that over 5,000 products are manufactured from recycled paper as of May 2010.
- When paper is recycled and formed into a new paper product, the process uses only 60% of the energy required to manufacture paper from new materials. Along with the energy savings, 50 percent less water is used to make the recycled paper and 74 percent less air pollution results from producing the recycled paper, according to the EPA.
- Forty cases of copy paper made from 30% post consumer content saves more than 7 trees, 2100 gallons of water, 1230 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and 18 pounds of air pollution in comparison to virgin pulp.
- Commit to Recycling. Paper’s impact on the environment continues even after it is thrown away. As of 2008, paper and paperboard accounted for 34% of the municipal waste stream, the largest portion.
- “Using toilet paper made from virgin trees is the paper-industry equivalent of driving a Hummer” says Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
- If every household in the US replaced just one 12-pack of 300-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with let’s say Seventh Generation?s 100% recycled toilet paper, we could save: 1,900,000 trees, 690 million gallons of water, a year’s supply for over 5,400 families of four, and 4.8 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to over 7,200 full garbage trucks.