Did you know? World consumption of paper has grown 400 percent in the last 40 years, now using 300 million tons of paper each year. Now nearly 4 billion trees or 35 percent of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries on every continent. For example:

• 1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
• 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees

Unfortunately, the papermaking process is not a clean one. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pulp and paper mills are among the worst polluters to air, water and land of any industry in the country. Each year millions of pounds of highly toxic chemicals such as toluene, methanol, chlorine dioxide, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde are released into the air and water from papermaking plants around the world. In addition, while tree farms or plantations help feed the demand for wood, they can’t provide the plant and animal diversity found in natural forests.

Solutions: 1) Recycle – now accounts for about 38 percent of the paper made. 2) Many environmentalists who believe that the world’s forests are being cut down faster than they can grow are pointing to the continued success of wood-free paper made with other plants such as hemp and a similarly fibrous plant called kenaf. 3)  Use agricultural waste as a stand in for wood. Agri-pulp, as it’s called, is wheat, oat, barley and other crop stalks left over after harvesting. Combined with recycled paper and other fillers, some paper makers are finding that agri-pulp paper makes fine stationery.

Urgency: Although growing new trees makes papermaking a renewable resource, according to a 1996 report from the U.S. Forest Service, the rate of harvest for softwood trees in the southern United States outpaced growth for the first time since 1953. In addition, A common use for deforestation of the rainforests is for the production of paper, which accounts for more than 40 percent of logged trees. As many know, approximately 25% of the world’s oxygen comes from rain forest.

We have the technology now to resolve the problems with paper reduction, namely:

1. Convert paper mills that haven’t converted to use hemp and kenaf: One of the major reasons paper mills are hesitant to convert to using kenaf or hemp to make paper is because they are not set up to process anything except trees. Converting a paper mill to process these wood pulp alternatives would cost tens of millions of dollars and major coordination with their suppliers and customers.
2. Increase recycling:  According to the Worldwatch Institute, recycling efforts around the world recovered about 110 million tons, or 43 percent, of all paper used. Let’s set a national priority to double that over the next decade.
3. Use agricultural waste as a stand in for wood: Agri-pulp, as it’s called, is wheat, oat, barley and other crop stalks left over after harvesting. Combined with recycled paper and other fillers, some paper makers are finding that agri-pulp paper makes fine stationery.

I suggest we make it a national priority to save the world’s forest from paper production.