Pulp Nonfiction: Cleaning Up the World's Paper Trail
12/18/99
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Title: Pulp nonfiction: Cleaning up the world's paper trail
Source: Environmental News Network
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 18, 1999
Byline: Margot Higgins
There is no pulp fiction in a recent report by the Worldwatch
Institute. According to the report, one fifth of all harvested wood
ends up as paper and the figure is expected to increase.
Since 1950, paper use worldwide has grown six-fold. As the year 2000
approaches, many businesses will print out their records as a
safeguard against Y2K computer glitches. Adding to the pile is the
deluge of newspaper and magazine supplements that will be published
to mark the end of the millennium.
Nevertheless, the report suggests that global consumption of wood
fiber for papermaking could be cut in half.
In the study, titled "Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape,"
co-authors Janet Abramovitz and Ashley Mattoon suggest how to
maintain the usefulness of paper while reducing the environmental
burden of a heavy paper diet.
"We have the tools at hand to dramatically lessen the impact of paper
on the world's forests as well as reduce energy use, air and water
pollution, and solid waste," the authors note.
According to their report, reducing paper use means cutting
consumption in industrialized countries. In the United States, paper
accounts for nearly 40 percent of all municipal solid waste. Paper
use in the U.S. averages 335 kilograms per person per year compared
to less than 4 kilograms per person in India.
"If industrial countries trimmed their paper use by 30 percent, an
amount largely possible through good housekeeping alone, global
consumption would fall, and developing country consumption could rise
to meet basic needs without adding to the serious global
environmental burden of paper," the authors suggest.
Other cost-cutting recommendations in the report include improving
the efficiency of paper production, using more recycled paper and
materials, and incorporating non-wood fibers such as agricultural
waste into paper production.
"As businesses like Bank of America, United Parcel Service and
Proctor and Gamble have discovered, saving paper saves money too,"
the authors said.
Bank of America reduced its paper consumption by 25 percent in two
years with online reports and forms, e-mail, double-sided copying and
lighter paper weights. The bank also recycles 61 percent of its
paper, saving nearly one-half million dollars a year in costs to haul
the paper waste.
Companies that use the Internet instead of paper for purchase orders
and invoices can save $1 to $5 per page by eliminating paper and
reducing labor costs and time, the authors note.