Paper Usage

Current Consumption

• Globally, annual production exceeds 368 million tons (1)
• Twenty-five percent of world demand comes from the U.S. (2)
• A typical office worker disposes of about 350 pounds of wastepaper each year. (3)

Relentless Demand

• The last 53 years have seen a production increase of 426%, and demand is expected to double over the next 30 years. (1)

Resource Inputs
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• Trees
  Our world’s forests are disappearing at 34 acres per minute (4 FAO)-an area the size of South Carolina each year–and cannot sustain the growth in paper production (5).
• Water
  The paper industry is the biggest industrial water user per ton of product (6), consuming 11% of all freshwater in developed nations. (7)
• Energy
  Producing each ream (500 sheets) of paper requires the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. (8)
• Chemicals
  The production of paper uses less than 50% of the tree. The rest ends up as sludge which is burned, spread on the land, or land-filled. (9)

Pollution Outputs
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• Chemicals
  Pulp and paper ranks fourth among U.S. industries in the release of carcinogenic dioxins (10)
• Air
  The industry contributes 9 percent of total manufacturing carbon dioxide, a gas which contributes to global warming. (11, 12)
• Water
  Mill waste water contaminates surrounding ecosystems harming plants and animals. (13)

Disposal

• Office waste
  Americans discard 4 million tons of office paper every year-enough to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California. (14)
• Landfills
  Waste paper occupies over 1/3rd of landfill space (15).
• Limits to Recycling
  Fibers can only be utilized a few times before losing their integrity. Paper itself is not an infinitely renewable resource. (16)

Potential Reductions
If the United States cut its office paper use by roughly 10 percent, or 540,000 tons:

• Greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 1.6 million tons–the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road for a year.
• The savings in energy could power a quarter of a million homes.
• Enough solid waste to pack 44,000 fully loaded garbage trucks would be eliminated.
• The water retained could fill 16,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools
• 13 million trees’ worth of wood would be preserved! (17)

What You Can Do
Now that you know, you can take steps to help. To learn how you can minimize the adverse consequences of paper consumption, try our impact calculator for businesses, check out our Solutions and Get Involved with the campaign.

* A Note on the Value of Paper
Paper is not the problem. It is how it gets wasted and produced that are. Some industry leaders are working to achieve sustainability. Many items are certified as sustainably sourced and produced, and recycled content is a popular option to reduce harmful impacts. We respect pulp products as commodities necessary to our daily lives. But over-abundant consumption, like faxing coversheets, is wasteful and decreases workplace efficiency. Utilizing fewer pulp resources is a straightforward means of treating our planet well.

References

1. RISI. World Pulp & Recovered Paper 15-year Forecast. Bedford, MA: Paperloop, Inc., 2007
2. Paper Industry Association Council. “2006 Paper Annual Statistics.” Paperrecycles.org. <http://stats.paperrecycles.org/>.
3. Natural Resources Defense Council. “Smart Paper Policies Are Good for Business.” <http://www.nrdc.org/cities/living/paper/why.asp>.
4. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). “Facts and Figures - Deforestation and Net Forest Area Change.” <www.fao.org/forestry/site/30515/en>.
5. Making Paper as if the Earth Matters. Reach for Unbleached Foundation, 2005. <http://www.rfu.org/navigation/Librarydocs/MakingPaper.pdf>.
6. United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Chemical Releases and Transfers: Pulp and Paper Industry.” Sector Notebook. Washington, D.C.: 2002 <http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/notebooks/pulppasnp2.pdf>.
7. Steering Committee of the Environmental Paper Network. The State of the Industry: Monitoring the Indicators of Environmental Performance. Environmental Paper Network, 2007. <http://www.environmentalpaper.com/documents/StateOfPaperIndSm.pdf>.
8. Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Why Should I Care About Paper Use?” <http://eetd.lbl.gov/paper/ideas/html/issues.htm>.
9. The Paper Task Force. White Paper No. 5: Environmental Comparison of Bleached Kraft Manufacturing Technologies. Environmental Defense Fund, 1995.
10. United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA). National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), 2006a. <http://www.epa.gov/air/criteria.html>.
11. United States Energy Information Administration. Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey. 2002. <http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/efficiency/carbon_emissions/carbon_mfg.html#figure_1>.
12. Martin, N., N. Anglani, D. Einstein, M. Khrushch, E.Worrell, and L.K. Price. Opportunities to Improve Energy Efficiency and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the U.S. Pulp and Paper Industry. Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 2000. http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/767608-u2AeNa/native/767608.pdf.
13. Health Canada. “Priority Substances List Assessment Report: Effluents from Pulp Mills Using Bleaching.” Canadian Environmental Protection Act. <http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/contaminants/psl1-lsp1/pulp_mill_effluents_pate_blanchie/pulp_mill_effluents_pate_blanchie_5_e.html>.
14. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. “Green Tips | Sustainable Initiatives.” <http://www.dep.state.fl.us/green/tips/tips.htm>.
15. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006.” <http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/pubs/msw06.pdf>.
16. Lea, W. Reid. “Plastic Incineration vs. Recycling: A Comparison of Energy and Landfill Savings.” Journal of Hazardous Materials 47: 1 - 3, May 1996.
17. Environmental Defense. “Paper Calculator.” <http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/>