What is the one most commonly found thing, when we look around a classroom floor or any public area? Well, apart from dust and plastic?
Paper.
Have you ever cringed when in movies, you see the actor — while writing a book, a love letter or a note — crush and throw sheet after sheet in an effort to get the perfect line? Well clearly, that is not an example we would be wise to follow, given that around the world millions of trees are cut down to make the paper that we take for granted. It is estimated that we use one million tonnes of paper every day, which is a huge pressure on our environment.
It is true that there are already many people and organisations working on recycling paper, which is the most commonly advocated solution to save forests and trees. However, saving paper is not only about saving trees or forests or the wildlife that depends on them, but also reducing the loss of energy and non-renewable resources. Paper manufacturing processes use resources like electricity, oil and water and emit harmful gases contributing to air, land and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gases.
The paper industry is one of the biggest consumers of energy in most countries. Waste paper adds to garbage and ends up in land-fills adding to the pollution.
Recycling paper processes also consume energy and cause pollution, though less than original paper production processes. So recycling is a good idea, but not enough on its own. When it comes to saving paper, the 3R principle needs to be applied by each of us — Reduce, Re-use and Recycle.
The good news is that the first two Rs are very easy to do, and completely within our control. Some of the examples are:
■ Print only what is needed. Print on both sides or even two pages on one side
■ Format documents before printing to avoid wastage of space
■ When printing PowerPoint presentations, format multiple slides on one page
■ Use email confirmations instead of paper copies that need to be signed in person
■ Make diaries for rough work or notes by stapling used one-sided sheets of paper
Using paper efficiently helps save space, money and time: the space required to store paper, the money spent on buying paper and maintaining printers, copiers and other machines and the time spent to manage the paper work manually.
Many organisations have policies about saving paper within the company. For example many telecom companies now encourage their consumers to opt for e-bills rather than paper bills.
Though the government processes usually involve a lot of paper work, there are some measures taken to reduce paper wastage. For example, the Indian Railways now allows travellers to carry an e-copy or a mobile snapshot of their tickets.
Newspapers are also being made available online, but as an exception, since many of us still prefer a hard copy in our hands with the early morning cup of tea! So let’s focus on the other ways to contribute!
(Sindhu Ramachandran is a documentary filmmaker and a creative writer who contributes to unboxedwriters.com)