How a thermo-cup, an electronic ticket, and a flea market reduce deforestation.
Sort and recycle paper
To get a ton of paper pulp, which will make office paper, you need 4 tons of wood. Depending on natural and production conditions, this figure is equal to several felled trees. The production of recycled paper requires half as much raw material. That is, 1 ton of paper pulp requires only 2 tons of waste paper.
Avoid unnecessary printing
If you are already printing something, make sure that it is really necessary, and even better – that it will be used by several people, more than once. Electronic tickets instead of paper, printing on drafts, electronic versions of publications instead of paper – all this makes it possible to significantly reduce the use of paper.
In the world, more than half of paper products are made from recycled paper or cardboard. It can be packaging, toilet paper – it is easy to identify by the appropriate labeling on the package, and if it is not bleached – by the gray color.
Advertising flyers, which are distributed near the subway, live exactly 30 seconds: from the moment they are distributed, to the nearest landfill, where they will not be recycled.
However, this is not the only way to advertise your services or products. By giving up flyers, you encourage advertising customers to use environmentally friendly marketing tools. The same applies to other types of paper advertising products.
HOW: Print on both sides. Pay attention to the structure: a minimum of free space on the paper and slightly reduced margins of the document help to save a lot of paper. Reducing the margins by half can save more than 5% paper.
Discard paper – business cards, notes, or conferences can be downloaded to your phone or other digital media.
Use a thermo-cup instead of paper cups
Paper cups are mostly used only once. To prevent them from getting wet, they are covered with a special polystyrene film, so they can be processed only in special plants, and they are not in every country. In Britain, where such plants operate, seven million paper cups are used per day and 1% of them are recycled.
In some countries, due to food safety standards, a paper cup cannot contain more than 10% of processed raw materials, and therefore requires new wood raw materials for production.
It is estimated that the abandonment of paper cups by the staff of the office, which employs about 50 people, will save more than one tree a year.
HOW: Use reusable utensils at home and in the office.
Exchange things, not buy new ones
Old furniture, books that you no longer use, do not have to go to the dump. There are many ways to give such things a “second life”. The production of new things directly affects deforestation, and their reuse is an important contribution to reducing volumes. This principle works in the opposite direction – if possible, use used things, not buy new ones.
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