The Environmental Importance of Office Paper Recycling

Recycling has been the environmental crusade to reducing the human footprint, with it’s spotlight shining down on in recent years. It was the noblest of causes, recycling being a great idea for the environment and society; but it is being handled poorly. Its modern descendant has turned into a corporate scheme with recycling becoming a business, instead of being about the environment because marketers are using environmentalism as a excuse for overconsumption, recycling products are only being recycled for profit, and cities & big business use inflated numbers to attain media attention. Let’s now take a look at the bread and butter of

If the manufacturers of these products would take them back and reuse them, we would save trees. For example, thousands of trees are cut down in the Amazon Rainforest everyday. When the trees are cut down, animals lose their homes. If animals lose their homes, they can be taken for free game, road kill and food for other animals that wouldn't normally eat them, which might cause that animal to get sick or die. If animals died the food chain would be out of control and possibly lead to the extinction of many species. If other species were to go extinct more and more species would go extinct causing a mass extinction. Most people just throw away paper, which is a waste of trees, animals, and the environment. So if we recycled this paper the more trees, we would save.

The scientific consensus on global warming is sobering: Its real, it’s happening now and carbon dioxide emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels are almost certainly responsible. Predicting what the exact effects will be on humanity and the planet’s living resources is trickier, but a growing body of evidence suggests they will be profound…, and most wealthy industrial nations have adopted mandatory limits on carbon emissions under the 2005 Kyoto Protocol. (Woodard, 2007, p.27).

Paper recycling, on the other hand has been around for much longer. Pulp and paper plants in Canada have been using recycled material for more than 60 years (Bourdages, 1993, para. 4). One of the most obvious environmental benefits of using recycled paper materials, is that it will help to reduce the amount of trees being cut down for production of new paper. Overall, it is evident that there is an established recycling effort in Canada, featuring both positive and negative aspects.

Staples, Inc. is a "green" company, and ranked in the top 25 on the Green Power Partner list put out by the EPA (Pallavi, 2006). Nearly 3000 of its office products have at least some recycled content in them. Clearly, Staples has sustainability and the global village in mind. By using recycled content, Staples shows that it is committed to helping people live better lives and reducing the number of items that end up discarded in landfills each year. The paper the company sells and uses is environmentally friendly, and Staples is working on the creation of its own brand of products that are produced with raw materials that are green. The fulfillment center in Maryland is solar powered, and a store in California is also using solar power for at least part of its energy needs (Pallavi, 2006). Strategies to reduce power usage include putting all copiers in the store in "sleep mode" if they go unused for more than 15 minutes, which saves the company more than $1 million every year on its energy bills. That simple step also keeps 11 million pounds of harmful carbon monoxide out of the atmosphere (Dalkir & Warren-Boulton, 2003).

The value of recycling paper in a consumer society is the saving of natural resources which would be for each tonne of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water. Again there would be the ecological value of less landfill space consumed.

Though made of paper, this product takes up a lot of space and creates a lot of weight. Imagine if all of those materials went to the dump instead. If we recycle just one ton of the material, we can save over 9 cubic yards of landfill space. This is why it is one of the key components of achieving a zero landfill waste stream.

Much has been said about recycling; however much of it is myth rather than fact. Much of this myth has been created by the recycling industry that has flourished recently. According to one professor, the recycling business in the United States has exploded, growing from $4.6 billion in annual sales in 1968 to $236 billion in sales in 2008 (Bradley). This means that since the Mobro 4000, the recycling industry’s sales have increased by just over 5,100%. This growth has given them influence over other industries as well as politics to encourage recycling in communities. This has led some communities, like New York City, to begin

Recycling happens with many different kinds of materials. According to the EPA, “Paper and paperboard account

According to a study conduct by California’s Alameda County, an average U.S. office worker uses a sheet of paper 10,000 sheets paper annually (McCool, K., 2008). A case of standard copy paper cost approximately $40, which means paper usage cost for each worker is about $80 annually. The amount of paper has make major environmental concern as a significant expense for a company.

When purchasing paper, the University of Oklahoma should switch to paper that has 75% or more recycled contents as part of a larger effort to make the campus greener and more sustainable. Creating a pro-recycle policy on shredding documents is a great way to start reducing our paper usage. When paper is shredded it destroys the fibers within the paper, this makes it difficult to recycle and manufacture new printer paper with the shredded fibers. The reason being is that shredded paper cuts the fibers shorter, which makes them weaker, and renders them inefficient for the higher grades of paper. “The longer the paper fiber, the higher the grade of paper it can manufacture. Also, the longer the fiber, the more often it can be recycled.” Shredded paper is hardly ever accepted by higher grade paper mills that is why it is important to not shred them. If the papers are shredded the Paper Mills are less likely to buy them.

The purpose of this article is to explain why recycling should be required in all states. Vander Linden says that recycling is the best way for “waste

However, if we just look over to the United States by itself, over 50 billion paper cups are made every single year. By looking at a study, the 'Report of the Starbucks Coffee Company/ Alliance for Environmental Innovation Joint Task Force' the production of paper cups emits about 0.11 kilograms of carbon dioxide of a single cup. This takes in consideration of all factors of the makings which includes the paper, the paper sleeve, the plastic, and the ink of the cup. But it's okay if this much carbon is produced because we have our forests to clear it up, right?

As a current member of this organization over the past 18 years, coupled with a bachelor degree from Excelsior college, I have encountered an issue with current organizational policies that require the use of paper to be completed. Due to being an employee within the administrative division of this organization which utilize paper more than other departments within the company, I have noticed and frequently discussed with colleagues about these issues. It is desired that the current policies be refined to better the organization’s processes saving employees, managers and stakeholders time and money when conducting business. While aspects of the current process may be working for some personnel, improvements can

Paper seems to be an essential need in our daily lives, so much so that everywhere we look we see paper, especially in our classrooms. The use of our cellphones as well as other electronic devices in a classroom setting can help lower the amount of paper being used. It’s an important resource that will later lead to having a positive effect on our enviorment. As we all know paper comes from trees, but that is just one product that comes from cutting down trees. Other products include things such as the inside souls of our shoes, electrical plugs, home insallation, card board packaging, amongsts other things. At, “35 percent of the total trees cut down around the world are used in paper industries on every