Paper Counts

I want to write about paper, again. I’m not anti-paper, I like paper. But let’s face it, we all handle a lot of paper in our lives. Our Sacramento legal office went through 10 million pieces of copy paper in 2009. If that sounds shocking, that figure puts us just about average for North American office workers. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the paper industry ranks third after the petroleum and chemical industries for fossil fuel emissions. If all that paper we used had been virgin paper, it would have required 1,200 40 foot tall trees. One ream of paper, 500 sheets,  uses 6% of a tree. We buy paper by the pallet which is 400 reams. We’ll buy 20,000 reams in a year, or 50 pallets for this one office. In our six legal offices, we’ll consume 27.8 million pieces of copy paper in a year. If it were all virgin paper, 3,336 trees would be needed to produce the 138 pallets of paper that will be delivered to our doorsteps. And I’m not even counting the other 50% of our employees who work on the law enforcement and information systems side of the organization. As part of our greening effort, we are trying to become more conservationist-minded with our paper.

For every ream of 100% recycled content paper, which we buy the most, no trees are lost. Understand, this doesn’t mean we save 100% in energy, greenhouse gases, wastewater or solid waste when we buy 100% recycled content paper, also known as post-consumer content (pcc) paper. In other words, even 100% pcc paper is not carbon-neutral. If you are interested in knowing more about the paper industry and paper’s impact on climate, I recommend reading this report from the Environmental Paper Network. One of its recommendations which synchs up well with sustainability is to use less paper and to buy recycled content paper. We may never be a paperless law office, but we can use less paper. Any office can and save money by doing so.

Part of going green is selling green. That means I need to do my homework and get some facts about an issue, in this case the environmental impact of paper. When I wanted to know the energy used to produce different kinds of paper, I searched for EPA’s online website calculators. It’s a quick redirect on the EPA website to the Environmental Defense Fund’s paper calculator, which is the source for the comparison info I’m using. I’ll summarize. The greater the recycled content of the paper you buy, the lighter your impact on the environment. I entered 138 tons (one pallet is equivalent to a ton in weight) into the calculator and ran comparisons against virgin, 30%, and 100% recycled content paper:

 

 

 

 

   

As a department, we have shifted to nearly 80% use of 100% pcc paper. But with budget and spending shortfalls, 30% pcc is looking better to our buyers who make purchasing decisions against the bottom line. There is a cost difference, no question, and their dilemma is understandable. And in an era of shrinking funds, 30% gets the nod. My goal is to mount a successful educational campaign to reduce paper usage so that even when we spend a little more to buy 100% pcc paper, we’re still saving money. And it’s a big difference to the environment. In contrast to 30% pcc paper, if we buy 138 tons of 100% pcc paper, the savings is enough to meet the energy needs of 9 homes a year, to save 2,500 trees, and to take 64 cars off the road. Our legal offices could do this by reducing their paper usage by only 15%. Two things—print less and print duplex. What if we all did this in our own workplaces? The savings adds up fast and those dollars can be applied to buy 100% pcc paper to conserve our natural resources.