Defra’s 2007 Waste Strategy notes that Direct marketing material is estimated to account for approximately 550,000 tonnes per annum of the household waste stream. Sending all this to landfill has major consequences.
The Stern Review states that, nationally, landfill sites are responsible for emitting over 700 million tones of carbon dioxide.
If you recycle, and don’t send to landfill, you save 1,400kg of CO2 per tonne of paper.
8.5million tones of waste paper and card are landfilled annually at the moment. WRAP estimate that we could reduce this down to 2.8 million tones by 2020. A saving of 7m tones of CO2
Packaging waste – or waste arising from packaging, is now totaling 10m tones per annum. The industry estimate it to rise.
We landfill 75% of our waste while other countries are landfilling less than 5%
[From DEFRA and Envirowise]
Most of our waste is burned or buried which is bad for
the environment and our health. See link here for information about incineration
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/waste/issues/incineration_and_landfill/
Amount of paper we use.
Choose recycled paper.
As an industry we use a lot of paper. In the UK, 120 billion pieces of paper are printed every year, which is the equivalent of a paper mountain more than 8,000 miles high. The manufacture of this paper emits 1.5 million tonnes of CO2, without taking into account the impact of the manufacture of printing equipment and ink and the energy consumed by printers and the transport of paper and print.
Recycling one tonne of paper can save 7000 gallons of water, 17 trees (or 6 mature trees) , 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4000kw of energy.
[From Global Action Plan report and Envirowise]
We must all choose post consumer recycled paper. The definitions around recycled papers and the percentage different stocks contain can be a minefield but really worth getting to know.
The production of recycled paper can use up to 80% less water, 65% less energy and produce 95% less air pollution than virgin paper production. (http://www.earth911.org) Once you have got to know your papers talk to your printer. Printing on a recycled stock is a different ball game to virgin stocks. Make sure they have experience in this.
What is the problem
with paper use?
• 10 litres of water are required to produce one sheet of A4 paper;
• The paper manufacturing industry is the world’s third largest
consumer of fossil fuels;
• The paper manufacturing process generates large amounts of solid waste
which must be disposed of;
• Increased demand for paper means more timber is required;
• If it is not recycled, waste paper will release carbon emissions, either
by being burned in an incinerator or buried in a landfill site
Increased use of recycled paper enables us to make use of waste as a domestic raw material, so reducing imports of pulp.
Research suggests that 12 jobs can be created in the economy for every 1000 tonnes of waste paper recycled.
http://www.lovelyasatree.com/paper_issues.htm
Choosing
paper
http://www.lovelyasatree.com/choose_paper.htm
Paperfinder
http://www.lovelyasatree.com/paperfinder.htm
Please email info@three-trees.org
1.
The Studio
2.
Innovation
3.
Paper
4.
Print
5.
Digital