Green facts
We all know that paper wastes trees. But how many trees are needed to make one sheet of paper? How much paper can be made from a tree? 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.