Which is Greener?

Recycling Paper or Sending Old Computers to Landfill

Recently, I have seen some ads and public relations articles where computers and email are touted as “greener” than print ads like brochures, fliers, etc. That doesn’t seem plausible to me. Their argument is that paper is bad because:

    1. it ends up in landfills
    2. it saves trees if we don’t use paper
    3. it energy consumption and greenhouse gases are greater with paper.
Let’s examine each point.

The American Forest and Paper Association reports that 57% of the paper consumed in America in 2008 was recovered for recycling, When you consider that 7% of fiber cannot be recycled and another 7% ends up in books that are for long term retention you see that less than one third of recyclable paper ends up in the landfill.

Paper is organic and decomposes fairly rapidly in landfills. Computers are plastic and heavy metals and other bad stuff that takes centuries to biodegrade.

Making paper does not destroy forest, just the opposite is true. When you think of trees used in papermaking don’t think of that tree in your back yard or those in a park, think of tree farms, where millions of trees are planted every year. There are nearly 750 million acres of forest in the U.S. – about the same as 100 years ago. Because we use paper, there is MORE forest. The paper industry plants 1.7 million trees daily. That means more wildlife habitat and more environmental good. Planting trees can help combat global warming. Trees are a crop just like corn or soybeans.

Less than 10% of U.S. power comes from renewable sources, but in the pulp and paper industry, that figure is greater than 60%. Burning fossil fuels is a major source of greenhouse gas. The pulp and paper industry uses very little fossil fuels. Instead, they use carbon neutral renewable sources to generate steam and electricity. Paper compares favorably with electronic media. The average person’s paper use for a year – 440 pounds – is produced by 500 kilowatt hours of electricity, the amount to power one computer continuously for 5 months. Daily newspaper readers use about 20% less CO2 than those who read news on the Web for a half hour.