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A new factsheet is available from the Environmental Paper Network that provides both innovative and common sense advice as well as real life business examples of how to save money by reducing paper use. Oh yeah, it lowers your carbon footprint too. Check it out and start saving today.
Okay, I know I post about Catalog Choice too much on The Paper Planet, but its the hottest act in town right now. The latest big boost was a fantastic segment on the Today Show this week where a bunch of 4th graders speak such simple truths you simply can't watch it and then not sign up. The response has been huge and Catalog Choice has now made it possible for over 450,000 people to easily cancel millions of catalogs.
You can see the full YouTube video that these 4th graders in Brookline, Massachussetts made about their school's "Catalog Challenge" by clicking here.
For the second year in a row, ForestEthics has published a holiday guide to who's naughty and who's nice in the catalog industry. Catalogs either get a reindeer/caribou, if they are "nice"; a fruitcake, if they're trying to change; or a lump of coal, if they are lagging behind in reducing their environmental impact from paper use.
This month, over 70 actions were held at Sears stores in the US and Canada to raise awareness about the devastating impact on the endangered Boreal Forest of Canada of mailing 425 million Sears catalogs a year. If you're concerned, and wish that Sears would be more responsible, you can send a letter to the CEO, Aylwin B. Lewis, here.
In the category of simple, ingenious ideas for everyone to save incredible amounts of paper and protect the environment with a VERY easy action...the winner is... Change the Margins! Its an effort to encourage everyone, and especially a few big corporations, to change their computers default settings in the widely used software program Microsoft Word to smaller page margins. This means more words fit per page - and less paper needed per job. They've even got a petition suggesting Microsoft go ahead and change the default right out the box.
Here a great National Public Radio story on the effort here.
How to Change Your Margins, from the website:
OK, so until we can get Microsoft to change the default margins, here's how to do it on your own. It should take no more than twenty seconds and just a few clicks of the mouse.
On your WORD screen, go to FILE, then PAGE SET UP.
Once on PAGE SET UP, click the DEFAULT key, and you'll be offered "Do you want to change the default settings for the page set up? This change will affect all new documents based on the normal template."
Then set your margins to whatever preferred new width you'd like. I'm suggesting setting each margin to .75" which will save an immense amount of paper.
Thanks for doing this! And I was right, huh? Twenty seconds or so? Not bad...
If you want more specific directions along with screenshots to guide you as you go, check out About.com's margin changin' tutorial.
"Green Paper for People and Planet” Launched at Major US Book Stores by Co-op America’s PAPER Project and Next Steps Marketing
Nearly 400 Barnes and Noble (B&N) and Hastings Books and Music stores nationwide will run in-store promotions highlighting magazines that use recycled paper, under a major push by Co-op America’s Magazine PAPER Project and Next Steps Marketing.
The “Green Paper for People and Planet” promotion will occupy prominent fixtures within these stores with special signage to highlight the magazines’ commitment to the environment. Each publication featured in these unique fixtures is an environmental leader in using recycled paper with at least 30 percent post-consumer content.
Six magazines that use recycled paper – Shape, Fast Company, Mother Jones, ReadyMade, Nickelodeon Magazine, and Body + Soul – will be prominently featured during November in 153 Hastings Books and Music stores. To view Hastings locations nationwide, visit http://www.hastingsentertainment.com/catalog/.
Barnes and Noble has committed to offering 10 slots for magazines that use recycled paper at a heavily discounted rate with special signage in their top 240 stores in January. This promotion will roll out more widely in April 2008 in conjunction with Earth Day.
Folio: Magazine, the premiere industry journal for the magazine publishing industry, has a blog which now features a weekly column on environmental issues in the industry written by Co-op America's Frank Locantore. Check it out, as in his first posting he takes on the recent surge in unverified claims of "carbon-nuetral" paper by several paper companies.
WWF International has released a new Guide to Buying Paper. While targeted for a European market, it is relevant to any organization making paper purchasing decisions with social and environmental responsibility. Go Get It Here.
Link to higher quality image: http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/commons/wwfpaperdispenser.jpg
This is absolutely hilarious, the direct marketer's are installing recycling bins to save money and yet they send out millions of pounds of junk mail a year to American homes... when will the insanity end?
Direct mail and marketing firm PEP-Direct says it will save approximately $500,000 a year working with International Paper Products Corp. to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfills and reduce the cost of waste removal, DM News reports.
IPP is providing signage and receptacles for PEP’s non-recyclable materials such as label stock and packaging. The companies have been working together for about a month.
IPP empties the recycle bins once or twice a week (the company will travel up to 100 miles from its Westfield, MA plant) and then compacts the waste into Enviro-Fuelcubes, which are burned in place of fossil fuels. PEP is using the arrangement to promote a greener image.
Catalog Choice, the new, free service from Environmental Paper Network member organizations NWF, NRDC, and the Ecology Center (Berkeley) which lets consumers easily opt out of catalogs they no longer wish to receive, its still growing, and so is the buzz. Today, the New York Times.
The initiative is tapping into a lot of common sense and has a growing list of companies partnering up with it, such as L.L. Bean. In the NYTimes article, L.L. Bean says, "We don't want people to get our catalogs who don't want our catalogs. We don't want to waste paper or our customer's time."
Since October 9, Catalog Choice has helped 165,000 people opt out of almost 1.7 million catalogs.
Thank goodness. The Environmental Paper Network's State of the Paper Industry Report shows that experts have been predicting continued, rapid growth of paper use, and increasing environmental challenges as a result. Efforts like Catalog Choice are critical to changing the course.
From Environmental Leader:
For books printed and bound in the U.S., Simon & Schuster plans to increase the level of recycled fiber in its purchased paper to 25 percent or more by 2012, a 150 percent increase from a current 10 percent baseline level.
Simon & Schuster purchases approximately 70,000 tons of paper annually. At current production levels, the shift to 25 percent recycled fiber will result in saving approximately 483,000 trees annually and reducing greenhouse gases by nearly 85 million pounds, the company reports.
Thanks to help from EPN member Markets Initiative, Transcontinental has announced the implementation of a Paper Purchasing Policy that promotes the use of environmentally preferable papers through a classification process that allows clients to make an informed choice regarding the paper they choose for their printing and publishing needs.
“Transcontinental is the first major North American print-media conglomerate to take such a comprehensive step towards safeguarding our forests and our climate,” said Nicole Rycroft, Executive Director, Markets Initiative. “This is good news for caribou, forests such as the Boreal and for clients looking for environmental printing solutions. We look forward to other major North American and global printers and publishers developing environmental paper initiatives.”
The largest printer in Canada and sixth-largest in North America, Transcontinental also ranks as the country’s leading publisher of consumer magazines and French-language educational resources, and its second-largest community newspaper publisher.
For more information about Transcontinental’s Environmental Policy, including its Paper Purchasing Policy, click here.
Catalog Choice is the free service that lets you opt-out of unwanted catalogs.
The buzz is growing, and Catalog Choice has been featured in national media including CNN, watch the clip below.
As of October 31st, the Catalog Choice community is 86,146 persons strong, having opted out of 515,128 catalogs. (if you multiply that by the numerous times a year most catalogs come, that's millions of individual catalogs!)
Per capita paper consumption in the United States exceeds 700 lbs/year, by far the most of any nation. There are 19 BILLION catalogs mailed every year in the US. Projects like Catalog Choice are helping to protect the world's endangered forests and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of wasteful and unnecessary paper consumption.
From the Environmental Leader:
Beginning with its November issue, Paste Magazine will now be composed of 30 percent post-consumer recycled content paper - up from the 10 percent they are currently using.
By making this decision, every year Paste will now save 2,000 trees, and will save enough energy to power 50+ homes.
“Shifting to 30 percent post-consumer recycled content paper is a small price to pay to help our future,” added Nick Marino, managing editor of Paste magazine. “Our hope is that other magazines will join in our commitment to recycling. As more publications get on board, the price of recycled paper will go down and the quality of the paper will go up!”
If you've been in a major city in the last few years, you've experienced the phenomenon of free mini newspapers now being handed out as a new strategy for newspapers to sell advertising. I'm willing to bet that, you, like me, had a certain thought at least cross your mind as you saw all the discarded papers piling up: "Wow, what a waste."
Free newspaper circulation now accounts for 30% of the European newspaper market, and 8% of the World newspaper market. Since 2001 free daily newspaper circulation has more than tripled from 12 million to over 40 million worldwide. That is a percentage increase of over 340% in 6 years. This equates to the use of over 9000 trees (allowing for 75% recycled content) every day.
Well, finally, an organized response is just beginning and its emerging as a London petition effort called Project Freesheet.
From the website: Project Freesheet is a web based campaign to highlight issues and concerns raised by the ever increasing amount of free literature (aka "freesheets") now being handed out on the streets of our cities around the world. By encouraging the public to upload and send in their photos of free literature waste we aim to illustrate the excesses of the free literature publishers through the creation of a visual petition (see the collage) Project Freesheet will continue to exist for as long as freesheet publishers continue to disregard their responsibilities to our streets and the environment. We will campaign about the negative impact of freesheets for as long as products with such questionable environmental credentials are produced
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