Go Green
We all know that paper wastes trees. But how many trees are needed to make one sheet of paper? And what about the energy and water wasted along the way? We gathered some answers to these green questions, using information from various sources, with a big credit to Greenprint.
Paper facts
- 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333 sheets.
- 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly).
Consumption
- In 2004 the United States used 8 million tons of office paper (3.2 billion reams). That’s the equivalent of 178 million trees.
- The U.S. is the world’s largest producer and consumer of paper. Per capita, U.S. paper consumption is over six times greater than the world average.
- Globally, 42% of industrial wood harvest devoted to paper production.
- Global paper products consumption has tripled over the past three decades and is expected to grow by half again before 2010.
Energy
- The U.S. pulp and paper industry is the second largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.
- Production of 1 ton of copy paper uses 11,134 kWh (same amount of energy used by an average household in 10 months).
Water
- Making one single sheet of copy paper can use over 13oz. of water– more than a typical soda can.
- Production of 1 ton of copy paper produces 19,075 gallons of waste water.
Waste
- One ton of paper requires the use of 98 tons of various resources.
- In 2003, paper and paperboard accounted for 35 percent of the total materials discarded in the United States.
- Production of 1 ton of copy paper produces 2,278 lb of solid waste.
CO2
- Production of 1 ton of copy paper produces 5,690 lb. of green house gases (the equivalent of 6months of car exhaust).
- Dumping paper in landfill adds methane to the atmosphere as it decomposes, with 20 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Forests
- In the U.S., we have lost 95 percent of our old growth forests.
- 4281 acres of rainforest are lost every hour worldwide.
References
- 1: www.conservatree.com
- 2: Paulson, Raymond. "Green Procurement Requirements and the Use of 100% Post Consumer Fiber Paper." Organization: NADEP North Island; Environmental Program Office, 2005
- 3: Sarantis, Heather. "Drew Power Point Business Guide to Paper Reduction." ForestEthics, September 2002
http://www.forestethics.org/pdf/reduce.pdf - Environmental News Network:
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/23702. - 6: Taevs, Debra. “Recycling’s Pushed ‘Reduce, Reuse’ Out of Equation.” Portland Metro Sustainable Industries Journal, June 2005
- 7: Environmental Defense Paper Calculator
http://www2.edf.org/papercalculator/index.cfm - 8: "Clean Technologies in U.S. Industries: Focus on the Pulp and Paper Industry." United States-Asia Environmental Partnership, September 1997
- 9: Hawken, Paul; Hunter, Amory L. “Natural Capitalism.” Little Brown & Co., September 1999
- 10:“Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2003 Facts and Figures.” US Environmental Protection Agency, 2003
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/pubs/msw05rpt.pdf - 11: Svoboda, Elizabeth. “Global Warming Feedback Loop Caused by Methane, Scientists Say.” National Geographic News, 29 August 2006
http://www.news.nationalgeographic.com - 12: Abromovitz & Mattoon, "Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape." Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute 1999, p21
- 13: “Earth Day Reality Checks & How You Can Do Your Part,” University of Oklahoma Environmental Health and Safety Office Saf.T.Gram. 14.1, Spring 2007: P1.