The article talked about cleanliness targets missed and uncertainty about the rise in papers left around, but here’s my question, why are papers being given out freely in the first place?

It’s not good for your economy cause some potential income is being lost, wasted by people who aren’t using the papers to the max, not even taking papers left by others and always taking new ones, etc. People aren’t going to stop riding the tube because there aren’t free papers. There’s then garbage, rider displeasure with all that garbage, cost to clean it up too late, apparently, etc.

Why are these papers being given out, never mind trying to find the reason for the increase in paper left around?

The same goes for any other subway that gives out free papers, as I don’t suspect the London underground is the only one in the world that does so. [Envirostats author]

- The Guardian, Dec 10 2007

Office paper wastage is by no means solely an Australian problem. See Stats 0494, 0495 and 0496 for other similar office paper usage trends, although they are not exactly the same so a direct comparison can’t be done, but the gist of it is well seen. However, in North America, office paper recycling is about 32.5% by weight in Stat 0486, when all the recycled paper usage is averaged out. Perhaps that’s why the Paper-less campaign is on in Australia that was the source site from which these statistics were found.

Recycling one tonne of paper (in Australia) would save 17 trees, 31,000 litres of water and 4,100 kWh of electricity.
- Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW) 2007

I added the “in Australia” in the statistic above that I did not post as a headline statistic because I know making paper in different places require different amounts of resources due to a variety of factors, from transportation to climate for growing the trees to the types of trees grown and harvested for paper, etc. However, that statistic was pertinent to this headline statistic and post. [Envirostats author]

- Project Paper-less (Australia)

Some of Sears’ catalogues came from the endangered North American Boreal Forest. The 425 million catalogues, of course, averages well over 1 million catalogues sent out per day.

With the release of its 188-page Wishbook catalog following a 13-year hiatus, Sears is growing more destructive to Endangered Forests at a time when forests, freshwater sources, and wildlife are most threatened. Sears gets a big lump of coal for its non-efforts this year, having done little to indicate that its 20th Century mindset will be reset for a 21st Century era of sustainable business.

On the good side, Patagonia has crafted a paper policy that backs up their reputation for savvy sustainability. They earn a caribou for each of the four criteria evaluated, which is fitting given what these policies will do for caribou whose Canadian Boreal habitat continues to be damaged by companies that don’t make the grade.

Please see Stat 0016 and Commentary 025 for some other catalog statistics for America, the latter also a means to stop getting some catalogs. [Envirostats author]

- Catalog Industry Environmental Scorecard 2007, by Forest Ethics (0.4 MB)

- Catalog Cutdown, Nov 28 2007

Catalog Choice seems like a great website to be able to opt out of catalogs, and at this time, I’d recommend any site that can do this successfully.

According to The Paper Planet, they have 86,146 members having opted out of 515,128 catalogs as of Oct 31 2007, which is fantastic because that’s a lot of paper, if you think about it. However, to put things into perspective, they say 19 billion catalogs are sent out every year in the US so that’s only about 0.0005 billion of 19 billion or 0.0026%. Mind you, Catalog Choice did not list their source whereas I have one in Stat 0016, with source, at 9.07 billion magazines and periodicals annually weighing 1.83 megatonnes (4.02 billion pounds) that’s less than half their value. The discrepancy is why I did not post those other statistics from the source sites in the headline as they did not cite a source and they are not originating research sources themselves. Still, that would only leave magazines saved rate at about 0.006% using my figures (take your pick for impact context, but I’d just stay with the absolute number cause that’s impressive on its own as it will grow).

Regardless of whichever value you embrace, though, the fact is while the action each of us takes will prevent a fair amount of paper, emissions, chemicals and such from being used, you can see the collective, while impressive, is still barely a scratch on the surface of things, and I really mean that. But I’m not trying to be negative here. I love this idea and wish I had one in Canada. I just think we could do much better than 0.00-something-percent so let’s go and sign up, people, if you live in the US! That’s why I’m posting this impromptu!

It should be pointed out you could join to eliminate catalogs you don’t want and still get the ones you do want because the majority of catalogs are sent without our initial consent, like if you buy something and your supplier get your info and just send a catalog some time. I’m not against people getting some catalogs to enjoy and enhance their lives, I’m just against the useless waste.

Now, who wants to start such a thing for Canada or other parts of the world, if they don’t exist already? If they do, please post a comment and alert myself and other readers to it. Thank you.

Minh Tan
Envirostats author

Furthermore, fewer than half of office staff say they are careful about printing documents and avoid printing hard copies unless absolutely necessary. Only 16% of workers said that their company emails carry a footnote asking the recipient whether it is necessary to print out the email, and only two-thirds of companies provide recycling bins for paper. [YouGov poll of 2,011 also included 25% and 13% statistics]

Statistics in the headline and in the body copy are from several printer manufacturing firms’ studies not made available on-line but are referenced at the end. However, I don’t doubt their findings, especially the behavioural part of office workers. The total paper is another matter but it is at least consistent with the world office paper usage statistic in Stat 0494. Check Stat 0495 for a nice complementary set of office worker paper document treatment habits that partly contribute to the numbers seen from British sources.

Nothing was stated about the domain of the source polls and such but if you read the article, this is probably a world phenomenon rather than one stuck to particular countries or groups of countries, even though the article was British and the YouGov poll was probably British (firm is British). [Envirostats author]

The most popular ‘one-time use’ examples are daily assignments, drafts and emails. Others include cover sheets, e-tickets for flights and directions printed in lieu of maps.

Paul Smith, a laboratory manager at Xerox’s research centre in Toronto, Canada, said: ‘Some people use what they’ve printed only for a minute. A cover page on a network printer job only survives maybe 30 seconds: you just recognise your job and then you recycle it.

‘You might only take an email to a meeting and then recycle it. Even if you want to use it a few days later, the study showed that people still recycle it because they don’t want to have to go and look for that same printout. You’ve already stored it electronically and you know where you’ve put it, so you just print it again.’

- 45% and trillion sheet statistic from behavioural research for the printer manufacturer Xerox via David Smith of the London Observer in The Guardian Unlimited, Oct 14 2007