Bulletin Green Tip #6: Conserve paper

As students, we come into contact with paper many times every day. Most people living in America come into contact with paper all the time, regardless of what type of job they have. Paper is everywhere and it isn't going away anytime soon. It comes from trees, can be composted and can also be recycled, which you probably already knew. Some things you may not know about paper:

According to DesignVitality.com, "the pulp and paper industry is the third largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. In 2005, out of 245,000,000 tons of waste 34.2% was paper according to the EPA. That is over 83,300,000 tons of paper that is wasted every year."

So we should reduce and conserve paper, which hopefully you already realized. But how do we do that?
When doing homework and classwork, be aware of the amount of paper you use. That is key. Awareness is really important in anything you do when trying to live a more caring, environmentally-conscious life.

- Use scratch paper whenever you can. If you're taking notes you won't be turning in, use the back of an 0ld quiz or assignment.

- Print on both sides of the paper and if you do print on only one side, when you're finished with it, save it for the future. I have a stack of papers by my printer that only have writing on one side. I print on the opposite side for many homework assignments or if I'm printing an article out to save, etc. "You can even use it to jot down notes for yourself instead of wasting Post it notes."

- Try to take up less space with your writing so you can use the paper to its full capacity. If you write small, then use that to your advantage to use the paper as efficiently as possible.

- Buy recycled paper to save trees and energy. When you make paper from old paper, it takes less energy than to create new paper from a tree. "According to the City of Seattle a ton of paper made from recycled paper, as opposed to virgin paper, saves the equivalent of 4,100 kilowatt hours of energy, 7000 gallons of water, 60 pounds of air emissions, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space."

- "Make sure to spell check your work, and even read over it on screen. Use the Print Preview feature to preview your work to make sure everything lines up correctly."

Have some other simple ways to reduce paper use? Post a comment!

Source of quotes: "7 Ways You Can Easily Save Paper and Avoid Killing the Environment."