Paper Waste is Destroying Our Environment

When I was growing up, I never thought about the amount of paper being wasted everyday at school or how many trees it took to make the cartoon section of the newspaper. I wasn't informed, my parents were not informed, and I don't think anyone else was too worried about the amount of paper being wasted because no one ever told me to recycle or reuse the pieces of paper that I used as basketballs to throw into my trash can hoop in class. Today, everyone knows that trees are being cut down by the billions to make newspapers, notebooks, books, paper, cards and your monthly bills! We can find all of these items online. Newspapers have websites, you can type all of your notes into a word document, you can read or listen to books through a computer screen and you can pay your bills online!

I looked up some facts about paper waste, to enlighten myself and you about this growing problem.

1.) 93% of paper comes from trees

2.) The majority of businesses trash is composed of paper(50% to be exact)

3.) It takes 75,000 trees to make the Sunday edition of the New York Times

4.) By recycling 1 ton of paper, you can save "around 682.5 gallons of oil, 26,500 liters of water and 17 trees"

5.) "U.S. offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year."

6.) With the amount of paper that is wasted each year, you could build a "12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California."

7.) "Every tree produces enough oxygen for 3 people to breathe."

These facts are more general. Let's get more specific to the United States:

1.) The usage of paper has increased from 92 million tons to 208 million tons in the last 20 years.

2.) "In 1997 the total world paper and paperboard production was 299,044 metric tons. It would take about 200,000 Volkswagen Beetle cars to equal this weight."

3.) On average, someone living in the U.S. uses more than 700 pounds of paper every year.

4.) Paper is one of the biggest elements in landfills in the U.S.(26 million tons in 2009).

5.) "The average person in the United States at the end of the last decade consumed as much paper as 6 people combined in Asia or more than 30 people in Africa."

6.) In the U.S. alone, 68 million trees are used each year to make paper and paper products.

7.) "The United States has less than 5% of the world's population yet consumes more than 30% of the world's paper."

The fourteen facts that I just listed are only on paper waste. What about the impact this has on the environment?

1.) "Over 60% of the roughly 17 billion industry is the fifth largest consumer of energy, accounting for 4% of all the world's energy use."

2.) "The paper industry uses more water to product a ton of product than any other industry."

3.) "Pulp and paper is the third largest industrial polluter to air, water and land in both Canada and the United States, and releases well over 100 million kg of toxic pollution each year."

4.) Worldwide, the use of paper has increased by 400% in the last 40 years.

5.) About 18 million acres of forest are used and lost every year. This is the equivalent of 20 football fields every minute.

6.) "If the current rate of deforestation continues, it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the rainforests on the earth."

Paper waste is an increasing issue that will ultimately lead to our deaths if we do not do something about this. That's a scary thought, but we are destroying our earth. If we can all start using less paper, take advantage of our other sources and begin to recycle, our paper waste will begin to decrease. You may be thinking, "it doesn't matter if we cut down our trees." Or "one person beginning to recycle will not change the state of our environment." Trees are our life line. They give us oxygen and allow us to breathe. If we cut down all our trees, we will not have any oxygen, which means we will all become extinct. If one person begins to recycle, the people around them will see that their friend, co-worker or family member helping the environment and that will persuade them to do the same. We all need to come together and bring our environment back. All it takes is one person to start a transformation.

Articles I used:
http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/Paper-Waste-Facts
http://www.thepaperlessproject.com/facts-about-paper-the-impact-of-consumption/

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