Things Are Good » paper

How to be a Better Paper User

Adam Clare — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:45:00 +0000

Eight ways to be more environmentally friendly with your paper use.

4. Print Double-Sided

Computer paper has two sides; how many are you printing on? If you have a laser printer at home, you can change the setting to double-sided printing and copying. Otherwise, consider printing documents one page at a time and printing the second page on the back of the first. It may take you more time, but you’ll also have less paper to buy.
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7. Make Paper Bag Book Covers

With more cities placing restrictions on the use of plastic bags, paper bags may be your packaging of choice. Well, these bags have many reuse options to keep them out of the trash, including covering your hardcover books. This also protects your books from damage and food stains. Plus, once you’re done with the cover you can still recycle the bag with the rest of your paper.

Internet Saves Millions of Tons of Carbon

Adam Clare — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:37:57 +0000

The internet is quite kind for the environment, which I guess is why good news appears on this website and not on paper handed out on city streets. Ecogeek has a post about a published report on how much carbon is saved by using the internet.

E-Commerce will reduce emissions by 200 M tons
-Telecommuting will prevent 250 tons of carbon emissions from reduced driving, 30 tons from reduced office construction and 300 tons of energy savings
-Teleconferencing could prevent 200 M tons of carbon emissions (if it replaces 10% of face-to-face meetings.)
-Shifting newspaper from print to digital could save 60 M tons of carbon
-Digitally shipping other goods, such as music, movies and books would also contribute.

Coincidentally, an email arrived from a reader and wants to let people know about his new venture ensuring the internet continues to supports people who try to live green, GreenPDF:

FormRouter has declared war on paper forms and is offering free training
and educational resources to get organizations to create their own
online PDF forms.

We are doing this because paper forms are an environmental disaster. It
is estimated that 80% of all organization documents are paper forms.

Save Paper Towels by Using a Sticker

Adam Clare — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:48:26 +0000

This simple sticker can make people aware that the toilet paper and paper towels come from tree. Apparently reminding people of this (also apparently) oft-forgotten fact can help protect the environment. Go order some stickers and put them up in your local coffee shop.

Testing shows a “These Come From Trees” sticker on a paper towel dispenser reduces paper towel consumption by ~15%
A typical fast food restaurant with two bathrooms can use up to 2000 pounds of paper towels a year
The average coffee shop uses 1000 pounds of paper towels a year
A single tree produces around 100 pounds of paper

This message will disappear in 24 hours

Cam Proctor — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:18:08 +0000

Scientists at Xerox have developed an ink that will disappear from printed paper in 24 hours, allowing the paper to be reprinted and reused again. The ‘disappearing ink’ is actually not an ink at all, but a temporary discoloration of light sensitive molecules known as photochromes. A sheet of paper is coated with these molecules (on both sides) which change color in response to ultraviolet light. After printing, the ‘ink’ starts to revert back to its natural state due to heat provided by the surrounding air. The paper itself is no more expensive than a regular page, costing about 0.5p per sheet.

The technology, which will not be commercially available for several years, will reduce the amount of energy required to print a single page by a factor of 200 – from just over 200kJ (which would power a 75W light bulb for an hour) to 1kJ (which would power the bulb for just 18 seconds), Mr Smith said. A recycled page uses about 110kJ of energy.

Those Crafty Japanese!

arvin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:14:34 +0000

First it was paper cranes, now it’s bridges. Architect Shigeru Ban is moving us along the twenty-first century by using very old technology: paper! Ban has created an cardboard bridge in France.

Weighing 7.5 tonnes, the bridge is made from 281 cardboard tubes, each 11.5 centimetres (four inches) across and 11.9 millimetres thick. The steps are recycled paper and plastic and the foundations wooden boxes packed with sand.

It’s environmentally friendly, can be rebuilt and totally cool.

Paper from Poo and Xerox

Adam Clare — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:39:57 +0000

People tend to use a lot of paper, we can do a lot by lessening how much paper we use. Currently we can buy 100% post-consumer paper and print double-sided. But what if we can go one step further?

Recycled paper mixed with a slurry of sheep poo can make more paper! The amount of jokes that can be made here are endless, but see how it’s made.

Xerox has created a kind of paper that will erase itself. Not only can reduce the amount of paper we use, we can reuse it as well!

“This offers the prospect of reusable paper in the sense that the content is automatically erased after a period of time, ready for fresh printing. Inspired by the fact that many print outs have a life-span of a few hours (think of the emails you may print out just to read, or the content you proof read on the train journey back home), the specially prepared paper will preserve its content for up to 16 hours.”