The Print Council today expressed strong disappointment with Toshiba America Business Solutions for its announcement to have a “No-Print Day” on October 23, 2012.  According to the company’s press release, National No-Print Day is intended to “raise awareness of the impact of printing on our planet.”

According to the Executive Director of the Print Council, Benjamin Y. Cooper, “The announcement by Toshiba is unfortunate on many levels.  First, paper is the most recovered and recycled product reaching roughly 70% recovery.  Second, paper companies in fact plant three trees for every one that is used.  Third, Toshiba itself is in the printing industry producing equipment to print on paper.”

According to the announcement, Toshiba plans to plant 1.5 million trees by 2025.  Cooper noted that the goal would represent about one third of the average daily planting of trees that currently takes place in the U.S.

“Planting 1.5 million trees sounds like a laudable goal and it is but it represents an insignificant addition to the anticipated 20 billion trees that will be planted by the forest products industry during that same 13 year stretch,” Cooper said.

“A better program for Toshiba is to become a sustainable company by the proper use, re-use and disposal of all their products.  Different communication needs and applications call for different media.  No one media is impact free.  Paper based communication is, however, recoverable, recyclable, and renewable – a claim that few are able to make,” Cooper concluded.

Marty Maloney, Chairman of Broadford & Maloney, Inc., a founding member of The Print Council and its first Executive Director added: “Toshiba has made a major business faux pas based on sophomoric enthusiasm matched by kindergarten level misinformation. They just didn’t do enough homework. Perhaps they are trying to take the spotlight off the lack of sustainability in the electronics industry and instead get consumers to incorrectly focus on paper. As Ben stated, paper is recoverable, recyclable and renewable but the monitors, hard drives, laptops, tablets etc. of the electronics industry are not and often fall into the category of ’ permanent garbage’. I will personally cut Toshiba some slack and assume they just didn’t get all their facts right. Now that Toshiba has the facts they can redirect their energy to a goal that is not a bogus old wives’ tale.”

Other industry members also commented. Yesterday’s issue of outputlinks.com quoted blogger D. Eadward Tree: “In a stunning display of greenwashing and ignorance, a U.S. branch of Toshiba has proclaimed October 23^rd National No-Print Day.”

Today’s whattheythink.com picked up a release from Two Sides that stated that “Greenwash is an unfortunate and growing phenomenon as marketing departments jump on the sustainability bandwagon. In what is one of the most blatant examples of greenwashing a division of Toshiba, Toshiba America Business Solutions, has announced that 23 October 2012 will be National No-Print Day.”