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Paper Manufacturer Launches "Print More" Campaign
innocent_white_lamb writes "Domtar, a major North American paper manufacturer, has launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to print more documents on paper. Domtar CEO John Williams opposes campaigns by other companies asking employees to be responsible with what they print. 'Young people really are not printers. When was the last time your children demanded a printer?' Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' The industry expects that, absent this campaign, paper demand will decrease by 4% annually. Williams's comments did not go down well in some environmental circles."
FTA:
'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
But it is an environmental negative.
Ahahahahahaha! Mod article +5 Funny. I haven't laughed that much all day! BTW, you owe me a new keyboard. 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.' What? Cutting down trees is an environmental POSITIVE? Seriously, It isn't April 1st anymore. My sides hurt.
Cheers, Chris
It's made from fast growing wood that is grown on farms for the express purpose of making paper, so it's not like they're not chopping down old growth forests. And offices around the country routinely recycle their paper, which make a whiter pulp that requires even less bleach than raw wood.
It's just not that big of a deal to me if it gets the point across better.
I certainly don't print just to print, but I don't feel like I have to stop and pity the poor trees that gave their lives for my TPS cover sheets.
John
If ANYONE in power had balls and brains, we'd be using hemp paper instead of wood-based pulp paper. That is all.
The continued government assisted prop-up of industries unwilling to evolve with technology, or environmental social concerns, is why we have half the problems we do. Why must this behavior persist?
It's not individuals that paper companies need to worry about in my opinion. When you have major gaming companies like Ubisoft claiming that they will no longer manufacture paper game manuals then you have a the beginnings of a major problem (at least if you are in the paper industry or whatever). If large companies stop printing manuals for games, or software, or stop printing instruction manuals for home appliances, and so on, you'll probably see an even bigger impact on paper companies than the losses of individuals skimping on paper use.
I don't print anything anymore. I don't own a printer. And I doubt that I will need one in the future. However I buy tons of video games, movies, appliances, and so on. If those things stop coming with paper manuals and books then it will make a difference.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/108/1084491p1.html [Ubisoft Removing Paper Game Manuals]
Why do environmental groups get upset by paper? Paper is a very renewable resource. Trees get cut down, and grow back. When I'm done with it, it rots (I happen to compost mine). With this computer I'm typing on, rare metals had to be mined to make it, and when I'm done with it, it sits around for at least a few thousand years (or more?). I have no problem with paper.
I don't respond to AC's.
feeling like a karma whore right now so I'll compare this to a puppy mill launching a campaign encouraging people to run over their neighbors dogs increasing the demand for puppies. /ducks
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
In the best case, paper is CO2 neutral. On average it is still CO2 positive. Not that I mind. :)
and how that's supposedly good because the carbon is sequestered, etc. Not many posts about the chemical nasties involved in converting trees to pulp to paper, or where those nasties end up, or how much energy is required to harvest the wood, convert it, and deliver it, or how much waste is in the manufacturing of printers, ink cartridges, and ink.
If demand for paper continues to fall, know what that land will be used for? Growing trees. Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
So yeah, trust your instincts on this one... like nearly every processed item, wasting less paper is better for the environment.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
...environmentalists are just too stupid to recognize that paper is a carbon dioxide SINK
Redo.
Read this analysis of the lifecycle carbon cost of paper by a paper company. The bottom line is is an estimated cost of 1.81 tons CO2-equivalent impact per ton of paper (see paper for details).
Paper appears to be the opposite of a carbon sink.
...similarly, environmentalists are doubly too stupid to realize that once you factor in the energy saved in harvesting, transporting, milling, packaging, re-transporting, storing, re-re-transporting, retailing, and re-re-re-transporting a ream of paper, you've created over eleventeen jerbs. Jerbs that environmentalists would have took! My god, they're so blingingly stupid!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Mr. Williams said ... 'We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative.'
OK, well;
1: Explain to me why "printing isn't a sort of environmental negative." Start by explaining how using energy and materials in cases where it is not worthwhile to do so is environmentally (or even economically) neutral or positive.
2: If step 1 proves to be impossible or tortured at best, tell me why you think your customers should be misinformed.
3: Re-read the section on free market economics about the importance of informed consumers.
4: Apologize for being an enemy of the benevolent ideals of the free market.
This is why people have problems with the free market. Not because an efficient free market is bad, but because oligopolist assholes like this guy work so hard to harm the free market. Even aside from whether he succeeds in damaging the free market, he is creating harmful imagery of what the free market is, which harms us all.
Of course, it is easy to throw stones. The harder question for me is: How do you fix it?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Paper: it's what books were made of before DRM.
I've realized it's no longer economical to print. Every time I print, I need to spend $50 for a new set of ink cartridges. In contrast, it's cheaper to pay to overnight concert tickets and e-file taxes. In short, there needs to be a printer that can run forever on a $10 ink cartridge in order to get me to print again.
No, I will not work for your startup
I present Trevor Blackwell's theory on how printing and then putting the paper in landfills may actually stop global warming:
http://www.tlb.org/faq.html (scroll to the bottom)
It is buried in a landfill (where decomposition releases methane, which is far worse than carbon dioxide.
Actually, paper doesn't degrade in a landfill. You can still dig up readable newspapers from the 1800's.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
After you write "That is all." you are supposed to stop writing. That is all.
Do you see how it sort of loses the effect when you keep right on going like this? Also we can pretty much tell when you're done by the period and then the lack of any more words.
From the article, a statement from Domtar CEO...
"No one is more interested in the well-managed forest than the paper industry."
I live in the Pacfic Northwest and I am surrounded by "managed" clearcuts.
The forestry industry has this odd idea that "managed" means planting one species, equally spaced for easy harvesting, and often not even a species native to the region. "Grow it fast, grow it thick" is the rule, not the exception.
The "managed" forests out here feel "dead". There is very little diversity in flora on the floor of the forest and I can only assume that is why it feels "dead". The animal life that depended on that diversity is absent. I remember walking through a "managed" re-forested area one time and it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't being pestered by mosquitos or gnats. Odd. It wasn't until later that I realized that the stuff they feed on was missing from the forest--no food, no bugs. The diversity had been 'managed" right out of the forest.
"Managed" is a relative term, and open to damn near any interpretation you wish.
I seriously doubt that a paper manufacturer and an environmentalist would agree on those interpretations, especially when a dipshit like John Williams is involved.
> Instead of using that timber for paper, it'll be used for lumber or for biomass electricity generation (which has a net zero carbon emission).
Perhaps, perhaps not. Take your example of biomass. Think that doesn't have as much pollution as paper production? Hint: it ain't carbon neutral anymore than paper production is. To get decent land utilization you will be growing something faster growing than trees, probably with fertilizer. Then there is the energy to irrigate it, plant and harvest and there still isn't a biomass to usable fuel cycle that doesn't waste close to as much energy as it produces.
But regardless, land must produce more revenue than the property taxes so one way or another value WILL be reaped, regardless the environmental impact. Some will get flattened for development, some will become pasture land, farmland, whatever. That law of unintended consequences always bits ya. Ponder that before dreaming of a world without paper.
Democrat delenda est
If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-bad-for-the-environment-can-throwing-away-one,2892/
Then, another tree will be planted to replace it. Your paper doesn't come from ancient trees in the South American rainforest.
No, it came from the truck that brought it to the office from the store, where it was brought from the regional distribution hub, where it was brought from the vendor's distribution warehouse, where it was brought from the staging area at the factory, where it was brought after being soaked in chemicals to bleach it white.
1 page less isn't much, but TFS says 4% less, and 4% less is a lot less overhead waste, regardless of the "renewable" aspect of the source.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Printing requires a certain overhead cost. Once that overhead cost is met, the cost of printing drops dramatically. But for many years my printing threshold has been far below that overhead cost.
See, to print, you have to have a printer. I'm often mobile; I sure don't want to carry another 15 pound device plus supplies. And printing is unreliable. Ink cartridges are expensive, and prone to drying out and frequent replacement and the associated trip to the office supplies store. Printing is SLOW. You have to set up drivers, you have to plug stuff in, you have to dicker with drivers and print queues when paper doesn't feed properly. Printing over a network is a pain. You have to have drivers for the network printer, and you have to spend anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes setting it all up in the first place.
And then, when you are done, you have a document in your hand. You can't instantly send it *anywhere* save by digitizing it. (EG: faxing, or scan/email) Sure, you might need a signature on it, but once it's digitized, a signature is easily pasted on the document in its original (soft copy) format anyway.
So, why did you do all that, again?
And then there's quality! When I print, it's highly likely to be because I'm making a presentation. To produce *nice* high quality prints, you need a nice, high quality printer, preferably color. For somebody for whom a ream lasts for at least a year, it's hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars in order to print on $5 of paper. So I find that it's easier and cheaper to print to PDF and then email it that to the local Kinko's or other store. I get the best quality prints in color, on demand, without dickering with drivers, and just having to drive about 1/4 mile to get it, on the one or two days in a quarter I might need it. Queue it up around lunch, and it's a quick stop on the way back with my sammich.
I could go on with faxes - receiving faxes with a "fax machine" has a slew of problems. If your paper jams, your fax is hosed. Since the fax may well be a contract worth many thousands of dollars, this is a non-starter. Also, paper faxes can be lost. They can't be reprinted without the original. They aren't automatically archived for later review. They can't be easily viewed in a remote office without being faxed again, along with the problems of quality degradation, etc.
But soft-copy faxes carry NONE of these problems. Done right, a soft-copy fax system is redundant, multi-point, and accessible from anywhere with proper security authentication. We made this switch years ago, and never looked back!
Printing sucks. I do everything I can to eliminate paper!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
There is still no technology that is superior to paper when it comes to reading and reviewing articles.
Although I write on the computer all day, when it comes to giving my full attention to reading a complex paper, I cannot do it without printing it out. Somehow the ability to find a comfortable position and scribble all over it with the freedom of an actual pencil allows me to relax and go into deep-thinking mode much better.
Ebook readers just aren't anywhere near what they need to be in order to replace paper for reading PDFs.
And I see nothing wrong with a company that sells paper launching an advertising campaign encouraging people to use their product. They are just a business trying to make a profit at what they do. If you think printing on paper needs to be cut back, then lobby for some new laws to limit how much paper can be produced, but attacking the paper companies for trying to make a profit is not the right way to go about it.
Having just skimmed the paper, it doesn't look like they account for CO2 removed from the atmosphere by the growing trees. Here's a quick calculation of that:
Assumption 1: all plant matter which does not make its way into paper is burned, or otherwise releases its carbon as CO2, hence is neutral for this analysis. (It could net contribute to greenhouse if it releases as methane instead.)
Assumption 2: paper is 100% cellulose.
Cellulose is a polymer of (C5 H10 O5), which means that it is 4/9 carbon by weight. One unit of carbon burns to produce 11/3 = 3.667 units of CO2. So one unit of paper would burn to produce 44/27 = 1.630 units of CO2, and conversely, 1.63 tonnes of CO2 were removed from the atmosphere to make that paper.
So we're still behind on CO2. And, of course, there are all sorts of other environmental costs.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
You can still dig up readable newspapers from the 1800's.
Yeah, but then it's stinky. You should probably just read today's news, it's more current anyway.
It's like the oil company lobbyists "there is no global warming"; okay "there is global warming, but it's not caused by humans"; okay "the global warming is caused by humans but it's within the normal limits"; okay, "the global warming is exceptional but it's for the good"; okay "the global warming is bad, but not using petrol would be worse"; okay "the global warming will be deadly but we'll be able to find a solution"; okay "we haven't found a solution, but we have lots of lobbyists, money and lawyers".
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
environmentalists are just messed up and confused, they've got so many cruisades on these days they are bound to conflict.
Can you point to a group of people united in a cause that this is not true for? Open source or linux crowds? Moral crusaders? Liberals? Conservatives? Religious fundamentalists? You really shouldn't knock a cause based off of it's weakest links. Except for humor, like the whole "living in our parent's basement" thing we have going on here.
Speaking of, I think I heard the microwave upstairs tell me my hotpocket is done. Gonna eat it and talk trash on ubuntu now.
"This page intentionally left black." - sponsored by HP Toner and Ink Division.
Anybody want a peanut?
You are assuming most of the new paper made from virgin fiber remains intact. In fact, most of it will be disposed of: Either incinerated or stored in a landfill. Landfill storage turns out to be problematic: "Quantification of methane emissions from landfilled paper is still imprecise, but if it is included, at the least, the yield, measured in terms of CO2 equivalents, will be increased by a factor of 2.5 compared with the CO2 emitted during complete incineration." [Wood in Our Future: The Role of Life-Cycle Analysis: Proceedings of a Symposium (1997) ]
Either way, paper is a net contributor of greenhouse gasses. Also note the original reference I chose was from a "green" paper company. Estimates from environmental groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund Paper Calculator, indicate far higher net CO2-equivalent impact - 5882 lb CO2 equivalent per ton of copy paper according to the EDF, a ton more than Verso's estimate.
This guy needs a new business, because an iPad has replaced my printer. Does all the same things, even uses the same USB port. There's no going back for me.
And then you haven't even mentioned the CO2 cost of producing/recycling paper, as well as transport to and from the consumer.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
The shit printer manufacturers put us through. Smaller ink cartridges, no refill, timed killswitch, DRM, "need ink to scan" and the shit of "cheap printer, expensive cartridges" they put us through. People see it and avoid it. They realize a page printed in the home printer is about $0.50, so a booklet of 50 pages will be $25. I have no qualms printing 100 pages at $0.03 per page on my old laser printer. But I see how people wince when an ink printer spits out a full-color test page at a wrong press of a button. And endless problems - drying up ink, printers failing and so on.
Take a step back towards printers with reasonable cost per page, and the paper sales will increase...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The obvious issue you're missing here is that people are specifically setting aside land for trees for renewable paper resources. If the demand for the paper wasn't there, there'd be no monetary incentive to grow the trees, these aren't just "found trees" on land nobody owns, they're a for-profit concern. The only way this would be viable is if governments paid the owners for the trees to remain uncut, or purchased the land for the same purpose, but that would likely require some kind of green tax and for people to actually support their principles with cold, hard cash, which is usually the sticking point.
Assuming we can't find such a solution, the question right now is whether growing the trees and sinking them into paper is better for the environment than, say, turning the same land over to cattle or food production. In an ideal world people would just grow trees, but this is far from an ideal world, so we have to look at practical solutions.
What humans too frequently forget is that the Earth is a fragile eco-system and you can quite often do a lot of bad by trying to do good. One example is the negative publicity about nuclear in the 80's, for instance, which has probably been more detrimental to the Earth since we've relied on the more polluting coal and oil industries instead - in an ideal world we'd rely on renewables of course, but again, the real world requires practical solutions. Another case in point, only today there's a story about the clean air act in the US actually contributing to climate change, good intentions which, prima facie seem to be laudable but have negative outcomes, we're just too reactionary a race and the whole "stop using paper" movement is another potential area where we need to consider all the facts before making a decision, and all the solutions. For instance, off the top of my head, it might be better that trees collect the CO2 into paper simply because we then have a form of carbon that's easier to deal with than having it loose in the atmosphere, even if we're not dealing with it very well right now, and of course that has to be offset by the negative impact of actually producing and transporting paper products.
Effective at what?
I clean my hands because I am bent on choosing the things that end up in my mouth, even though I just use a dry piece of toilet paper to wipe it, I keep my anus out of my mouth just fine.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
That's not true. Recycling paper uses far less water, less energy, and produces far less pollutants than paper from wood, and (modern) recycling paper doesn't do any damage to the printer. You are spreading the paper industry's lies. For the former, plenty of studies are linked on Wikipedia. For the latter -- I had never even heard the claim that recycling paper was bad for printers -- but anyway, I found a reference to a study done by the German federal institute for materials research which apparently isn't available online as well as references to a couple of large corporations that tracked the printer wearout when using different papers.
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