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

The increase in rate is amazing! Unfortunately, so is the amount not recycled. The 180,000 tonnes figure is rounded from 178,333 but had to be an estimate in two significant figures to accommodate for the rough estimate for the 2006 recycling rate that was not available, but presumably along the same line as the 2005 rate supplied by the Japanese Council for PET Bottle Recycling.

Source article was about how fashionable some of Japan’s PET softdrink bottles are, and fashionable they definitely are! I’ve always said about Japanese packaging that it is often so beautiful, I would never want to consume or use whatever it held. This is a perfect example. Unfortunately, often times, it is also often excessive, and in more ways than just human efforts put into it. [Envirostats author]

- Council for PET Bottle Recycling via PingMag in English, Dec 27 2007

The trash volume isn’t the main statistic here, but the workforce it supports in a terrible picture of poverty in a 5:1 workers to daily tonnes of trash ratio. Very touching source story, even if it were about green practices. [Envirostats author]

- The Economist, Dec 19 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