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“Don’t Print” Isn’t “Going Green” by Charlie Corr

Posted on July 14, 2009 at 4:06pm, written by Douglas Jung, Creative Director

“Ask Charlie” is a new feature that showcases customer questions and the thinking of our resident print expert Charlie Corr. If you have a question for Charlie, please send it to us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). To kick off the column, here is an excerpt of a letter written to the industry on the benefits of paper based communications.

“Don’t Print” Isn’t “Going Green” by Charlie Corr

It is increasingly popular to bash the use of paper. The industry is an easy target as everyone uses paper and the presentation of the industry is laughable (think Dunder Mifflin on The Office).

Despite the many environmentally friendly actions taken by the paper, printing and publishing industries, little is known of these efforts due to a self-inflicted inability to publicize them.

Paper Facts

Paper is made from cellulose fiber, the source of which can be pulped wood, or a variety of other materials such as rags, cotton, grasses, sugar cane, rice, or waste paper. The first piece of paper was produced from rags in AD 105 by Ts’ai Luin in China. Today, wood pulp is the most common source material for the manufacture of virgin paper, i.e. paper which has no recycled content.

Due to reforestation, forests in the US have actually grown over the past century. About one-third of the United States — 747 million acres — is covered with trees. An estimated 4 million trees are planted each day. On the nation’s commercial forests, net annual growth exceeds harvests and losses to insects and disease by 47 percent each year.

Paper is Biodegradable and Recyclable

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. pulp is produced from recovered paper. The use of recycled content varies widely among grades of paper, from an average of 45 percent recycled content in tissue products to a low of 6 percent in printing and writing papers. A shift toward higher recycled contents in printing and writing grades would significantly lessen the environmental impacts of the paper industry as this segment accounts for 27 percent of U.S. paper production.

In 2007, total paper recovery averaged nearly 360 pounds for each man, woman, and child in America. By 2012, the paper industry plans to recover 60 percent of the paper Americans consume. Most recovered paper is recycled back into paper and paperboard products.

For example, old corrugated boxes are used to make new recycled corrugated boxes, recovered printing and writing paper is used to make new recycled copy paper and recovered paper can be used in a variety of other products as well such egg cartons, fruit trays, wall insulation, roofing, and animal bedding.

Paper is Critical to the Economy

The forest products industry accounts for approximately 6 percent of the total U.S. manufacturing output, employs more than one million people, and ranks among the top 10 manufacturing employers in 42 states with an estimated payroll exceeding $50 billion.

Paper is the carrier of most of what is printed and published. The estimated value of shipped printed products in the US was $393 billion in 2007. There are almost 175,000 establishments in this segment and they employ 2.9 million. To put this in perspective, employment in auto manufacturing is around 1.2 million.

Paper, Printing & Publishing Environmental Achievements

Paper manufacturers have become much more environmentally friendly. From water to air pollution, reducing the use of dangerous chemicals and improving energy efficiency, paper manufacturers’ have improved dramatically.

The industry has undertaken a number of sustainable forestry initiatives. Associations such as SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) work on insuring sustainable, environmentally sound forestry practices. The estimated value of FSC labeled paper is over 20 billion USD. Paper manufacturers have also introduced a range of recycled and certified sheets.

Fortune Magazine recently rated International Paper at the top of its Social Responsibility list with Weyerhaeuser also in the top 10. Printing equipment providers have undertaken a number of initiatives to improve our environment from recycling toner cartridges to reusing components to deploying more energy efficient devices.

Many print providers, such as Mimeo, have attained chain of custody certifications and offer a wide range of recycled papers. Most recycle all paperwaste and many offer related recycled products such as 3-Ring binders made from recycled material. The Print On Demand business model eliminates waste due to obsolescence and the digital printing process is environmentally friendly.

Paper is Efficient

Not only is paper an environmentally friendly carrier of information but it has an intimacy of interaction. Paper lasts with limited backward compatibility issues. Reading from paper is 20% to 30% faster than reading from a screen. Viewing on a screen, results in lower accuracy for tasks such as proofreading and causes more eye fatigue.

Evidence suggests that comprehension is higher and that ability to read and annotate, to navigate quickly and to facilitate spatial layout favors paper over viewing. Reading results in a deeper understanding of text, a better sense of structure, and makes it easier to interleave reading and writing as it combines tactile and visual learning.

There is an end-user preference for print that is related to flexibility, culture, and ease of use. This preference increases with high quality typography and print and is not age specific.

A Call to Action

All of us can do more to help the environment. As citizens of planet earth we should all recycle and reuse whatever we can. We should do whatever we can to improve our personal environmental footprint. That doesn’t mean we should stop printing.

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