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Save trees by reducing your junk mail and using paper with 100% post-consumer waste content.
The average person receives more than 64 catalogs per year, or more than 17 billion in the US annually. The environmental impacts of logging, pulping, transporting, using, and disposing of this 4 million tons of annual catalog paper are substantial – 40 percent of which never gets opened. When you receive unwanted mail order catalogs at home call the company's 800-toll-free phone number and ask to be removed from their distribution list. And share the few catalogs you want with neighbors and friends, or use the companies' online catalogs.
Also, if you purchase paper products, be it toilet paper, computer printing paper, stationary, gift wrapping paper, etc., try to purchase products with the highest post-consumer waste recycled content. This avoids purchasing paper manufactured from old growth and pristine forests.
According to New Leaf paper, using one ton of 100% post-consumer waste instead of virgin fiber saves the following resources:
- 12 trees
- ~ half ton of solid waste
- ~1,200 gallons of water
- 1,560 kWh of electricity (enough to power an average home for 2 months)
- ~1 ton of greenhouse gases (equivalent to driving a car for 1600 miles)
- 8.5 pounds of criteria (urban air) pollutants
- 1.5 cubic yards of landfill space
Research
Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape, by Janet Abramovitz and Ashley Mattoon, Worldwatch Paper 149, Dec. 1999.
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