How many times have you heard someone say as they pick up their Sunday newspaper, “Boy, I wonder how many trees were cut down to make this?” It might be the New York Times, or London’s Sunday Times, or any major newspaper in the world that now falls with a thud on the doorstep, or requires almost two hands to lift.
Of course, it takes less than one tree to produce a single newspaper, but when you start to add up how many newspapers we read on average, it turns out that we each chop down around three trees a year to feed our habit. And when you think how many people read a newspaper daily – around 55 million in the US alone – you realize that this is madness. This consumption of forests can’t go on at this rate indefinitely.
Recycling only solves part of the problem. Even in places where the recycling rate is relatively high, like the US or Australia, not much more than 70% of newspaper is reused. The higher the percentage rises, the harder it gets to increase it any further. So that still means there is a net loss of around 30% in the best recycling countries – that’s about 3.5 million tons, or 42 million trees in the US alone. (These figures are approximate because it depends on the type of tree, the weight of an average newspaper, etc.) Add to that the net loss of places where there is a lower recycling rate, like the UK where they read around 14 million newspapers a day but recycle less than 40%, Europe, Asia, South American, etc.
And you can add to that as well the books we read. In the UK alone, they buy over 200 million books a year, and in the US over 1 billion. Greenpeace has been running a campaign to persuade publishers to print books on recycled paper, rather than on paper made from the ancient forests of Finland, Canada, Indonesia and elsewhere. Although it can claim some success, with many top selling writers such as JK Rowling and Margaret Atwood and a growing number of publishers signing up to the campaign, only around 6 million books have been printed on recycled paper since 2000 – a drop in the ocean. Meanwhile, we don’t tend to recycle books when we are done with them in the same way we do with newspapers, so the books that are printed aren’t going as quickly back into the production cycle.
It’s a conservative guess to say that over 200 million fresh trees are cut down each year to feed our reading habits, much of this resulting in the destruction of original forests. Clearly, this can’t go on indefinitely. So what can we do about it? Trying to increase recycling, especially in those places where the current rates are low, is essential. Recycling uses less energy and water and produces less pollutants than processing virgin pulp, but it comes at a cost. Printing an average book on high quality recycled paper today adds an extra $2, almost doubling the production costs. This is a big stumbling block for the publishing industry.
But there is something else we can do if we want to carry on reading books and newspapers at the same rate, and that is to offset their environmental impact by planting more trees. The Aborigines have a saying that if you cut down one tree, you should plant two to replace it. If we recognize that every time we buy a newspaper or a book we are an axe blow in the felling of forest somewhere, we should take an equal step to replace the trees. Even buying newspapers or books made from recycled paper has an environmental footprint in terms of carbon dioxide emissions from the energy required, etc. By planting more trees, or purchasing recognized carbon offsets, we can reduce this footprint to zero.
Planting trees has many benefits beyond providing raw material for paper. It cuts the carbon dioxide in the world, reduces soil erosion, provides habitats for wildlife, recreational areas for people, and so on. Furthermore, offsetting the cost of paper in this way is far cheaper than using recycled materials. It will add only 20 cents to the cost of a book to offset the cost of paper through planting, and that includes all the costs of managing the program. So for one tenth of the price of using recycled paper you could ‘zero footprint’ a book. We might have to pay a fraction more for our reading matter, but at least we will be ensuring the sustainability of our supply.
Zerofootprint has launched an innovative program targeting the massive impact the publication of newspapers, catalogues and books has on our environment. For one fifth to one tenth the price of using recycled paper, the organization will ‘zero footprint’ your publication. This is done through a complete offset of carbon, water and trees used in its production. The Zerofootprint seal stands for the highest standards in sustainable forestry, The Forestry Stewardship Council, and in scientifically proven carbon offsets. An independent council of scientific advisors oversees their program.
A book, newspaper, magazine or catalogue that has the Zerofootprint seal will give a reader absolute assurance that whatever was used to produce it is returned to the environment. Whereas only 0.6% of all books published in North America use recycled paper, arguably because of cost, ‘zero footprinting’ will hopefully have a far larger impact, because it can be done at very low marginal cost and is a more sustainable.
Everyone wins in this scenario: the planet, publishers and we readers – because we are making a choice for a sustainable future.
As Graham Lester George, chair of the Writers Guild of Great Britain, says, “If we don’t act now, the terrible irony is that our great grandchildren will only know of our ancient forests through pictures in books printed on the paper that contributed to their destruction.”