{"id":3427,"date":"2008-09-01T09:38:57","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T15:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3427"},"modified":"2008-09-01T09:38:57","modified_gmt":"2008-09-01T15:38:57","slug":"a-by-the-numbers-look-at-paper-recycling-does-one-persons-effort-do-any-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/a-by-the-numbers-look-at-paper-recycling-does-one-persons-effort-do-any-good\/","title":{"rendered":"A By-the-Numbers Look at Paper Recycling: Does One Person&#8217;s Effort Do Any Good?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 1px solid black;float: right\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2008\/09\/loggingtruck.jpg\" alt=\"Logging Truck\" width=\"288\" height=\"192\" \/>How much good comes from one person&#8217;s hypervigilant paper recycling effort?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been asking myself variations of this question lately, mainly while at my day job as I see basically all colleagues around me tossing paper into the trash, rather than the recycle bin.<\/p>\n<p>I know it&#8217;s tough to look in the mirror and think that you, just one individual on a planet of billions, can do much that makes a difference. So I&#8217;ve been pondering what the value is &#8212; or is not &#8212; to my vigilance in recycling.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/28\/mini-extreme-recycling-what-are-you-doing\/\" target=\"_blank\">Can I make a difference?<\/a> Is my effort worth anything to the planet, especially in the face of so many non-believers who assume apathy is the only medicine?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve looked for the numbers to apply some math-based logic to these questions.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To know how much good one person can do by recycling paper, I figure it&#8217;s good to quantify how many pieces of paper add up to a tree. Easy question, not-so-easy answer.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conservatree.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Conservatree Paper Company<\/a>, a <a href=\"http:\/\/ecoscraps.com\/2008\/06\/20\/recycling-soon-to-be-mandatory-in-san-francisco\/\" target=\"_blank\">San-Francisco<\/a>-based company that went from being a paper distributor (1976-1997) to being a nonprofit focused on transitioning the paper industry to using environmental papers, there are too many variables for a simple answer to that question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Things to Consider About Paper and Trees<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What kind of paper: What&#8217;s it used for? Newspapers and telephone directories, or office letterhead and advertising? The &#8220;groundwood&#8221; paper that is used for newspapers is considered about twice as efficient as &#8220;freesheet&#8221; papers used for office needs.<\/p>\n<p>And is the paper coated or uncoated?<\/p>\n<p>Taking these variables into account, Conservatree lays out some calculations. For an amount of X type of paper, Y number of trees are used:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper                uses <strong>24 trees<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses <strong>12 trees<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>A &#8220;pallet&#8221; of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#)                contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore,<\/li>\n<li>1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses .6 trees<\/li>\n<li>1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets<\/li>\n<li>1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly!)<\/li>\n<li>1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines                like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than                <strong>15 trees<\/strong> (15.36)<\/li>\n<li>1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines                and most catalogs) uses nearly <strong>8 trees<\/strong> (7.68)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How Can I Recycle Enough Paper to Save A Tree?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Using the number above that says there are more than 8,333 sheets of copy paper per tree, I figure that would require me to recycle more than 30 sheets per work day, for 50 work weeks to save one tree by myself.<\/p>\n<p>But the point isn&#8217;t to save the world myself, or for you to do it by yourself.<\/p>\n<p>If 250 employees at my company just recycle 30 sheets during a year, we&#8217;ll have saved one tree&#8217;s worth. It&#8217;s all about the team effort to make these little things worthwhile. Of course, those 250 employees would\/could\/should each recycle far more than 30 sheets during that time.<\/p>\n<p>Now the question is: How can those of us who believe &#8212; and who trust concrete numbers as demonstrated above &#8212; get those who don&#8217;t to start putting some faith in their abilities to make a difference?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2008\/08\/22\/recycling-by-the-numbers-the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-statistics-and-comparisons\/\" target=\"_blank\">Recycling statistics<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecopreneurist.com\/2008\/08\/15\/reduce-reuse-recycle-your-way-to-lower-overhead\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reduce, Reuse &amp; Recycle Your Way to Lower Overhead<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kellibestoliver.greenoptions.com\/2007\/04\/19\/green-myth-busting-recycling\/\" target=\"_blank\">Green Myth-Busting: Recycling<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/boioblue.etsy.com\" target=\"_blank\">Adam Williams<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How much good comes from one person&#8217;s hypervigilant paper recycling effort? I&#8217;ve been asking myself variations of this question lately, mainly while at my day job as I see basically&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[544,297,58,39,478,1358,1359],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A By-the-Numbers Look at Paper Recycling: Does One Person&#039;s Effort Do Any Good?  &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/a-by-the-numbers-look-at-paper-recycling-does-one-persons-effort-do-any-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A By-the-Numbers Look at Paper Recycling: Does One Person&#039;s Effort Do Any Good?  &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How much good comes from one person&#8217;s hypervigilant paper recycling effort? 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