Over at the Mother Ship, John Braceland has a
story about some new initiatives that paper companies are taking to attempt to dispel some of the myths and untruths regarding the purported environmental “evil” of print. To wit, a new educational campaign Domtar has launched:
This is a multiyear campaign that will utilize a variety of publications and methods to get the message out. The website is www.paperbecause.com. You can establish a link on your website as well.
Paper use can be conceived as bad. What are the facts?
- The forest products industry plants more than 1.7 million trees per day. For every tree that is harvested, several more are planted or naturally regenerated.
- We have about the same amount of forests as we did 100 years ago. If we did not use these forests for tree production commercial land would be used for development, which would shrink our forests.
- For every ton of wood a forest produces, it removes 1.47 tons of CO2 from the air and replaces it with 1.07 tons of oxygen
- In 2009 over 63% of paper consumed in the US was recovered for recycling. The recovery rate for metal is 36%, glass is 22%, and plastic only 7%.
One of the commenters to this article suggested a replacement e-mail signature for all those “Please think about the environment before printing out this e-mail” warnings: “The next time you worry about printing out an e-mail, consider that paper is made from easily renewable material while the device you're using to read this is not. Paper is recycled and recyclable. Scrap paper is not toxic waste. However, the device you’re using to read this e-mail will be toxic waste when you’re finished with it.”
Frank Kanonik of DigitalPrintInfo and I corresponded recently and he sent me a list of some other alternate sigs:
There is no need to feel guilty about printing this email. U. S. paper companies plant far more trees than they harvest. Paper is renewable and recyclable.
There is no need to feel guilty about printing this email. Today there are 12 million more acres of forest in the U.S. than there were 20 years ago. Paper is renewable and recyclable.
There is no need to feel guilty about printing this email. Between 1953 and 2006 the number of trees growing in the U.S. increased by 49%. Paper is renewable and recyclable.
There is no need to feel guilty about printing this email. Every day the forest products industry is responsible for planting more than 4 million trees in the U.S. Paper is renewable and recyclable.
Anyone have any other good examples?
About Richard Romano
Richard Romano is Managing Editor of WhatTheyThink. He curates the Wide Format section on WhatTheyThink.com. He has been writing about the graphic communications industry for more than 25 years. He is the author or coauthor of more than half a dozen books on printing technology and business. His most recent book is “Beyond Paper: An Interactive Guide to Wide-Format and Specialty Printing.
