The usual meeting at the last publication I’d work at would usually start with my editor dropping a stack of papers in front of me big enough to be it’s own paperweight. This isn’t anything new, journalism like many office jobs can’t really exist without paperwork. Still I look down at my new aquisition still warm from the printer with big black bold font only printed on the front with some sort of apprehension. A similar paper building block is dropped in front of every student at the meeting and it’s at this point that things get a bit concerning.
According to Ecology.com paper consumption has risen to 400% in the last 40 years. The website further estimates that the united states alone uses up 749 pounds of paper per person a year. As someone who works in a place where you see more paper than you see people I’m not surprised in the slightest. And while advocating for less paper in a newsroom for print media seems counterproductive I can’t help but ask if we recycle and wonder if this much paper is really needed. I’m well used to the eyerolls and bothered looks that come when you bring up climate change but I can’t not bring it up all the same.
There’s a high necessity for people to go eco-friendly.
Nowadays the world as a whole consumes 300 million tons of paper a year. Recycled paper only makes up 38% of that, the rest is made from recycled paper. What’s more the U.S. alone generates about 30 percent of the aforementioned 300 million tons of paper ( Ecology. com)
Ecology.com explained the process and why it’s important that we stop “Once a tree is cut down, it goes to a mill where it is debarked and then chipped into tiny fragments by a series of whirling blades. These fragments are then “cooked” in a vat with water and several chemicals, including caustic soda and sodium sulfate, to make a gooey slurry known as pulp. In the final stages, additives such as starch, China clay, talc and calcium carbonate are added to the pulp to improve the strength and brightness of the paper. Then the pulp is bleached to a white color using water and chlorine before being pressed into rolls and dried.”
Deforestation of course is the biggest concern when it comes to paper. Since we make paper from trees when we make 300 million tons of paper a year, that’s a great amount of forestry that gets used up to provide it. While tree farms offer a relief from the strain we put on the forestry of the planet, a lot of animals are losing their habitat from it.
Another less manageable concern when it comes to the paper industry is pollution According to the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pulp and paper mills are the worst pollutants to the air land and water. This is due to chemicals including but not restricted to toluene, methanol, chlorine dioxide, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde all of which are released yearly by paper industries.
All for syllabus, letters, memos and itineraries that we use or look at once before tossing out into the nearest bin.
While paper can be found everywhere and it may seem like we’ll never be rid of it there are ways to minimize its consumption. Recycling’s the most known one but there are ways beyond that. Publications have become more and more online based and will hopefully soon leaves printed mediaas a relic of the past. The magazines and publications that you like most likely have an online presence Likewise, e-books and applications can replace books and notebooks. Emails and electronic planners are already popular items. It’s actually surprisingly easy to reduce the paper in our everyday life by a wider margin. For the paper items you absolutely need, look for seals that declare the paper as recycled or Eco-friendly. Recycle the paper you do have that you usually just toss, past notebooks, failed first drafts, papers you’re told to read but only really skim through to be polite.
If this all seems like too much work keep in mind that trees make oxygen, their habitats, sustain multiple species, including keystone species which are the ones absolutely everyone needs to care about since without them we all to a person would pay consequences.
We already put the bees in the endangered list-risking crop failure and famine and an entire system collapse- let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot more than we already have.