Paper state

Image Feng Yu/Shutterstock.com

How do we imagine a world without paper? With great difficulty, we would suggest. Paper plays an integral part in our lives, from the basic use of toilet paper to myriad other products like cereal boxes, receipts, food packaging, books, magazines and newspapers. The question is, do we understand how our consumption of paper impacts our environment?

According to The State of the Paper Industry, published in 2011 by the Environmental Paper Network, the average person in North America at the end of the last decade consumed as much paper as six people combined in Asia, or more than 30 people in Africa. The good news is that the annual volume of paper trashed in US landfills decreased by 16 million tons from 2005 to a total of 26 million tons in 2009, or a reduction equal to a line of trash barges almost 400 miles long. However, a line of barges 640 miles long is still being trashed. And, between 2002 and 2009, exports of recovered paper from the US to China tripled, making waste paper one of the US’s largest exports. The most effective way to reduce the impact of the paper industry is to use paper more efficiently:

1. RECYCLE:  Use as high a level of recycled content as possible.

2. END USE OF WOOD FIBRE: Support groups and companies that want to end the use of wood fibre, which threatens endangered forests and other high conservation-value ecosystems, and that want to put an end to the clearing of natural ecosystems and their conversion into plantations for paper fibre.

3. ELIMINATE WIDESPREAD USE OF PESTICIDES: Support products which aim to eliminate widespread use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers in plantations and fibre production.

4. STOP INTRODUCTION OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS: Support those who aim to stop the introduction of paper fibre from genetically modified organisms, particularly transgenic trees and plants with genes inserted from other species of animals and plants.

5. RESPECT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S RIGHTS TO CONTROL TRADITIONAL LANDS: Support companies, products and governments that respect indigenous people’s legal and customary rights to control their traditional lands and protect their cultural identity, and respect local communities’ rights to a healthy environment and to participation as a primary stakeholder in land-use planning.

6. SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS: Support local economies and businesses, reversing the trend towards ever-larger industrial units. Promote community ownership and a diversity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the paper sector. Production systems should not hinder local food production or jeopardise environmental services or ecosystem assets, such as water quality, and their equitable use.

7. USE BEST AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY: The paper industry should use the best available technology to minimise the use of water, energy, chemicals and other raw materials, minimise emissions to air and water, solid waste and thermal pollution to eliminate toxic waste and mill discharges, reduce brightness of products to reduce levels of bleaching, and eliminate the use of chlorine and chlorine compounds for bleaching.

One of the simplest and most common ways to harness technology is not to print out your email, but read it on screen!

To read the full report, visit www.environmentalpaper.org.