Via our friend Mr. Tree (if that is his name) at Dead Tree Edition, 10 questions vis-à-vis a dubious idea from Toshiba, namely the “First Annual [sic] National No-Print Day on October 23.”
“We know that approximately 336,000,000 sheets of paper are wasted daily—that’s more than 40,000 trees discarded every day in America. We as individuals and companies are failing to make the link between printing waste and its negative impacts on our landfills, natural resources and the environment,” said Bill Melo, vice president of marketing, services and solutions, Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc. “For those reasons, Toshiba is leading the charge with NNPD to raise awareness of the role of paper in the workplace by not printing at all for one day. ... “To achieve this, we’ve committed to a comprehensive awareness and social media campaign—the star of which is ‘Tree,’ our affable spokescharacter who will be featured in a series of webisodes about making NNPD a reality.”
If nothing else, the phrase “affable spokescharacter” sends a bit of a frisson of terror down my spine. I confess I have a difficult time with “cute” and, yeah, I couldn’t make it very far into the video before my mind was riven with thoughts of their character “Tree” being thrown into a mulching machine. And can we all agree that “Seriously?” has become a “seriously” annoying verbal tic? More crucially, Our Mr. Tree beat me to raising some vital questions about this whole thing. To wit:
What is the source of that statistic about 336 million sheets of paper wasted every day, and what exactly do you mean by “wasted”?
According to that statistic, one tree is “discarded” for every 8300 sheets -- less than 90 pounds of office paper -- that is "wasted". But only one-third of that 90 pounds comes from whole trees; the rest is from sawmill residue and recycled fiber. What idiot is getting a yield of only 30 pounds of paper from an entire tree?
(Perhaps someone thought the old Looney Toons cartoon “Lumber Jerks” was a documentary—in particular the scene where an entire tree is shaved down to make one toothpick.) But I digress... Our Mr. Tree continues:
You imply that the harvesting of trees is inherently evil. If private landowners can no longer make money from trees, they’ll seek other uses of their land. Would it be better if they planted wheat? Or maybe shopping centers?
American farmers “discard” far more than 40,000 corn plants every day in the process of harvesting them. Are you going to organize a No Corn, Ethanol, or Grain-Fed Meat Day?
Toshiba makes a variety of electronic products. Are you planning to celebrate a No-Toxic-Materials-in-Laptops Day?
Perhaps even most vitally:
If we take the pledge to give Tree a day off, how are we supposed to blow our noses on Oct. 23? And will Toshiba America offices remove the toilet paper from their restrooms that day?
Again, my mind is riven with thoughts of Toshiba employees chasing “Tree” around the office... Ultimately:
Why the hell did Toshiba just exhibit at Drupa, the world’s largest trade fair for printers, if one of its divisions was going to turn around and publicly trash the entire printing industry?
That’s a perfectly fair question. I’m all for reducing waste—be it paper or anything else—and of responsible printing, but denigrating an entire industry is just wrongheaded. Because, as we all know, the electronics industry generates absolutely no waste and consumes no natural resources whatsoever... By the way, for more on the use of trees, see this post by Finch forester Erin O’Neill over at Finch in the Forest. For example:
Let’s use the unit of pulpwood measurement called a “cord.” This refers to a stack of logs four feet tall, four feet deep and eight feet long, and typically weighing a total of 2.5 tons.
The average cord of wood could produce either: •  1,000-2,000 pounds of paper, depending on grade
•  12 eight-seat dining room table sets
•  250 copies of the Sunday New York Times •  4,000 half-gallon milk cartons •  4.3 million postage stamps, or •  7.5 million toothpicks For additional perspective, building an 1,800-square-foot home requires the equivalent of about 20 cords of wood.
So think about the environment before you build a house or buy a dinette set!