Do We Still Need Paper?

Paper is an amazing invention.

It should be, it’s been around nearly two thousand years. How many inventions do you know that were invented that long ago and are still in use?

Coins are one.

And look what is happening to them. They are destined to disappear someday very soon.

Here is a video on how paper is made.

Paper, on the other hand, is not disappearing. Despite e-mails, electronic books and so on, the world still consumes a huge amount of paper.

And it continues to grow.

Thinks about it. Paper comes from trees.

Trees are chopped down to make paper.

Every 80 kilograms of paper equals a tree. And in the process of paper production chemicals are add and water gets polluted.

How much water? About 100 liters for every kilo of paper. Even if 90% of the water is recycled, that’s still a lot of dirty water.

And about 400 billion kilograms of paper are produced each year. That’s a lot of water pollution. And a lot of cut down trees (I’ll let you do the math).

So what has to be done? First, we have to buy and use less paper.

There should be a tax on paper, so that every time you buy something made out of paper, you pay extra.

And when you recycle paper, you should receive tax credits. This will help a lot. Especially since over half the manufacture of paper is used for packaging.

Secondly, we need to educate ourselves about the need to conserve paper. Homework should be done electronically. Text books should be replaced by electronic ones.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sentimental about paper. I wish that all my children’s books were available in hard copy as well. But in general, we have to be aware of the damage we are causing the planet each time we buy a weekend newspaper and don’t recycle it.

Paper is wonderful.

It’s just that the world needs to get used to using a lot less, and recycling a lot more.