April 21, 2017
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As the Earth gets older, it is more and more evident that we have a responsibility to protect it for generations to come. One suggestion has been to move towards a paperless society. Whether its traditional paper or index and bond paper the thoughts have been the same. After all, cutting down on paper use means cutting down fewer trees, right?
While paper ultimately comes from trees, today there are really two sources of paper: trees and recycled paper. Below are some statistics on paper production and usage:
- Over 69 million hectares of forests in North America are FSC Certified; who’s vision is to make sure that ‘The world’s forests meet the social, ecological, and economic rights and needs of the present generation without compromising those of future generations’.
- There are more trees in North America today than there were 100 years ago.
- In Canada and the U.S., we plant more trees than we harvest every year
- In Canada only 13% of the annual timber harvest is used to make paper, Index and bond paper makes up an even smaller %
- The pulpwood trees used to make paper are unsuitable for lumber manufacturing. They are grown and harvested specifically to make pulp and paper.
- Paper has an average recovery rate of 65% and can be recycled 5-7 times.
- Print, paper and mail chain supports 8.4 million jobs in the US alone
