All our effort of reducing the carbon footprint is no good if the rate of deforestation remains the way it is now. As you know, green plants “breathe” CO2 and the quality of air is dependent on how many trees there are.
To illustrate how much damage is done to forests by reading newspapers, let’s take Architecture Week – it is an American building/construction webzine with a monthly readership of 400,000. If they were to print the same amount of magazines, it would take 48 tons of paper every month. 864 trees every month. The fact that they can be read online saves more than 10,000 trees every year. And that is a relatively small publication. Paper consumption of a large daily newspaper is truly tremendous.
What now? You may ask. Recycle. Despite the many self-educated critics of paper recycling, it is still the right thing to do. Some sources say that by recycling a ton of paper, 2000 kWh of electricity is saved (in comparison to making paper from tree pulp). It might be a little optimistic but the energy is not the only consideration you should make. Paper takes about one third of world’s landfill space. By recycling paper you help saving that space and the landfills will consume less energy on managing the “assets”. The main reason for paper recycling, though, is stopping the deforestation. Also please keep in mind that in order to make one ton of paper from tree pulp, the factory will consume 30 cubic metres of clean water, 4500kWh of electricity and after the paper is ready, the factory will pollute a river or a lake with different dangerous chemicals.
By recycling paper you help saving around 40% of energy. You also save 2 trees every year because that’s approximately how much paper each of us uses. It is easy. Just sort your waste and recycle where possible. Also don’t buy office paper and wallpaper that doesn’t have a certification. As simple as that, just stop buying it.
For example, a basic non-certified 500-sheet office paper pack costs £2.08 in ASDA (LOL, don’t think I’m shopping at ASDA, I’m just keeping tabs on prices). A pack with FSC (PEFC is acceptable too) certification on the next shelf costs £2.56. The 50p savings won’t make you rich but it will make a lot of difference for the environment! Please note that neither of these certification logos will ensure that the paper you use is 100% eco-friendly. We still need to cut the amount of paper we use and improve the way we recycle.
