People's wastefulness has no limit.
From food to excessive clothing and accessories to reams of papers and fuel.. significant waste can be created due to sheer indifference, ignorance and may be even arrogance of people.
Schools and other education facilities are among the largest waste generators.
Due to mindless usage of paper, it is a common sight to see plenty of paper waste at schools, offices and homes
Unnecessarily, printed papers thrown in recycling bins thinking nothing is wasted since it is being recycled after all without giving any consideration to water and energy needed to make recycled paper..
Just wanted to highlight general People's mentality and perception here
In worse cases, paper just gets trashed in regular trash cans without even the chance of being recycled and ends up in landfills
Approximately 24 trees are required, to produce 1 ton of printing paper; 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees are cut down per year.
In US alone, about 68 Million trees are cut down each year to produce paper and paper products. An average of 300 Million tons of paper is produced each year not including cardboards.
"More than 30% of the world’s paper is consumed by U.S though it only makes up for just 4.25% of the world’s population. 45% of paper printed in offices ends up trashed by the end of the day " Morgan O'Mara, Record Nations
"Paper accounts for 25% of waste in landfills" Mr. Rooter
"Junk mails are worst offenders; these unsolicited are most entirely unwanted
5.6 million TONS of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually.
44% of junk mail is thrown away UNOPENED but only half that much junk mail is recycled.
Junk mail alone destroys 100 million trees per year!!!" Larry West, TreeHugger
There are several ways to eliminate junk mail as suggested in the link below...
Paper waste is very detrimental to Environment since in landfills, it releases methane, one of the most potent Greenhouse gases. If burned, it releases carbon dioxide
END Paper Waste from going to Landfills. Instead RECYCLE PAPER whenever possible. Unlike Recycling Plastics, which is inefficient and expensive, Recycling paper has the biggest ADVANTAGE of NOT NEEDING NEW WOOD / PULP
We can't eliminate our dependency on Paper & Paper Products but we can certainly help to Reduce Wastage & Over-consumption. Using too much paper isn't only bad for our trees, it's bad for the landfills, the environment, and our health.
Paper towels, napkins, paper plates, tissues are all paper products but are NOT RECYCLABLE; minimizing consumption of such products would go a long way.
Still not convinced to reduce paper usage?
Below in the Link are 40 Facts That Will Make You Use Less Paper
Sources:
