Paper Manufacturer Launches "Print More" Campaign 446
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."
wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
I don't worry much about paper (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Pulp paper should die! (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Paper is environmentally friendly (Score:1, Insightful)
Paper is a renewable resource. Printing documents doesn't destroy forests, because most paper comes from tree farms. If you don't print out this Slashdot article, the tree you think you're saving will just get cut down for someone else. Then, another tree will be planted to replace it. Your paper doesn't come from ancient trees in the South American rainforest.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
hmmm I'll revisit your argument when the number of trees chopped down due to paper manufacturing drops below the number of new trees planted 5 years ago (ie. that are now reaching maturity - its no use going on new trees planted if those trees never grow to fully replace the trees that were chopped down).
of course young people aren't printers (Score:1, Insightful)
It takes the accumulation of 35+ years of squinting at monitors, TV screens, game consoles, and books/newspapers in poorly lit rooms before people generally decide that they would prefer hardcopy for a significant percentage of their reading.
Re:+5 Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest. Paper is a truly renewable resource, especially since it is recyclable, in many different ways.
Printing pages pointlessly is a negative, because you waste energy in the paper production, for no good reason. And you waste your own money. But using paper "responsibly" -- for things you want to keep hard copies of -- is entirely appropriate, and not wasteful.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:2, Insightful)
In the best case, paper is CO2 neutral. On average it is still CO2 positive. Not that I mind. :)
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
They might be whackos, but you're a beefknob.
Sure, trees grow in dirt. That's TREES. Not paper. There are few steps involved before you get your fucking paper. First you have to cut the damn trees down. That takes energy from chainsaws or specialized tree-cutting machinery. Then you have to remove the branches. Then you have to gather the things up (did you know trees are fucking heavy?). Then you have to put them on a truck. Then you have to haul the motherfuckers to some huge-ass factory somewhere (did I mention trees are fucking heavy?). Then you've got to turn them into pulp 'n shit. THEN you've got to package the fucking paper. Then you've got to haul THAT shit to some warehouse, where it sits around wasting space in an air conditioned facility (don't want that paper getting moldy!). Then you've got to ship the fucking paper AGAIN to some store somewhere. And then some chump has to get in their SUV, drive 20 miles to their favorite store to pick up one item (that'd be the paper), and then drive the fuck home.
For some paper.
And THEN they print out a picture of the goatsex guy for him to autograph. They get their trophy signature, but later their mom makes them throw it out. So it ends up in the trash, along with millions of tons of other worthless paper, that gets hauled in yet another fucking truck, where it ends up in a landfill (no recycling here, 'cause you're all about carbon sequestration or some such shit!).
After all that energy's been spent, how much do you think your precious carbon sequestration really counts?
Like I said. BEEF. KNOB.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
> And those processing chemicals are recycled as much as possible too.
There are 3 R's. And they have a specific order, as in, what is best for the environment.
1 Reduce
2 Reuse
3 Recycle
Recycle is literally 1 step up from pouring it down the drain.
Arguing that we don't need to bother reducing because some of what is used get's recycled is, well, asinine.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have we lost the ability to grow trees?
Have you tried to buy a nice piece of wood lately? The answer to your question is "yes" but it has nothing to do with environmentalists, it's because the timber industry replaces the good forests they cut down with crappy fast-growing trees that produce knotty lumber because it's cheaper and faster that way.
Re:+5 Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
But he is bound by law to do the most he can to improve sales and shareholder value, regardless of the environmental cost, social need or greater economic benefit.
In what jurisdiction? Cite, please.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
How 'bout this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Paper: it's what books were made of before DRM.
It's no longer economical to print (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:+5 Funny (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest.
Do they undo the damage of the chemicals used in paper manufacturing? Do they put back into the ground all the oil that is used for shipping paper around? Do they go around and pull out all the paper that people throw away from the landfills?
Re:wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you know the difference between an ecosystem and a mono-crop? Dumtar claims to plant a tree for every one they harvest, but there's no mention of clear cutting or the overall effects of managing what used to be a forest as if it is nothing more than a pulp farm.
Perhaps there's an alternative.... maybe they should try brain farming. If they could genetically modify gray matter and its network to the same standards of homogeneity, the pablum coming out of the mouths of people like Mr. Williams might just sound intelligent.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Certainly, wasting paper is a waste. But if you're not wasting it, it isn't a waste to use it.
But that's exactly what the executive is trying to get people to do. He's saying that young people AREN'T printing enough stuff out.
So, either young people aren't effectively communicating, and he's suggesting that they can do this by printing stuff out [he's trying to help them, and only incidentally helping himself], or they are effectively communicating, only without using paper, and he's suggesting that they switch from non-paper media [such as email, wiki's, etc] to paper media [ie, his suggestion is entirely self-serving].
Re:wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Five years ago? Are you kidding? It takes trees more like 40 years to grow to anything resembling maturity, and if you see a tree that looks old, it _is_ old--that gnarled old maple tree out in front that they had to cut down was at least 100 years old, and probably more like 200. In five years you have a sapling, not a tree.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 1 is still "reduce", as in use less, as in do precisely the opposite of what these paper vendors are suggesting.
Are people honestly arguing that we should use more paper because the people who stand to financially benefit from using more paper said so? Have we gotten to be that stupid? The reduction in paper usage has come from a lot of places, and the "environmentalist" movement might be the loudest, but absolutely is not the most important. There are immediate and obvious economic benefits to printing less, benefits which actually grow geometrically with the size of the organization in question... I'd suggest that the single largest sector of reduction has been from large companies streamlining their processes to replace paper with electrons, the latter is monumentally cheaper and more efficient to store (especially since it would likely be stored electronically anyway, effectively making it a sunk cost), transport, produce, reproduce, track, edit, distribute and dispose of.
The USPS has seen declines in business for most of the same reasons... it's just cheaper to send a file across the internet than it is to send a physical piece of paper with the same information.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.
Yes, right. That's the only input to paper manufacture. Timber.
No large volumes of energy produced from primarily non-renewable resources.
Or large volumes of harsh chemicals.
Or large volumes of water.
And the only output is nice, clean paper.
No gaseous carbon, nitrous, or sulphur dioxide.
No water pollution.
And, of course, there is absolutely no paper, anywhere, being manufactured from old-growth trees or anything like that. It's totally sustainable and awesome! Really!
Re:Paper is environmentally friendly (Score:3, Insightful)
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/ [theonion.com]
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.
Re:Pulp paper should die! (Score:5, Insightful)
hemp paper...
Hemp paper is available, but it's more far more expensive than paper from wood pulp. ($46.50 per ream for ordinary 24 pound bond!) [thenaturalabode.com] Kenaf [visionpaper.com] is more promising. Mitsubishi makes kenaf paper for sale in Japan.
(Somehow, the hemp enthusiasts never seem to be very interested in other long-fibre plants, like kenaf, abaca, sisal, or jute. Or even bagasse and straw, which are agricultural wastes which can be recycled. Wonder why.)
This geek still prints on paper (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Re:+5 Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
Congratulations, you've noticed that humans are selfish short thinking bastards. Capitalism just lets them be that way more efficiently. Of course, Soviet and Chinese Communism are the kings of destroying the environment.
Of course, the computer you're on is the direct result of centuries of environment destroying progress that wouldn't have existed without capitalism. Actually you'd probably be dead without all the medical advanced it helped to come to pass. Granted, hypocrisy seems to be the staple of zealots.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Except nobody cuts gnarled old maple trees down to make paper. For one, such a beautiful wood like that is far too valuable to be used for paper, and it'll surely go into making some piece of fancy furniture, part of a musical instrument, or veneer to back up less costly materials--for a piece of slightly less fancy furniture, etc.
It's a bit disingenuous, or more than quite a bit naive to suggest that 100+ year old hardwoods are sent to paper mills.
A lot of (most of, these days) the trees used for paper production, are in fact rather quickly growing pine/fir trees, which are grown by tree farmers. Five years results in a product just about perfect for this purpose. Also, the fiber bearing remnants of timber farming--which use the same kind of trees (grown for a bit longer)--are also quite useful for making paper (as well as chipboard and other macro-grained products). Nothing goes to waste at an industrial tree farming operation.
Re:Dead Forests... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a managed forest plainly and openly maintained as a source of lumber, not a managed recreational nature preserve.
Repeat that, over and over, until you get it.
[sarcasm]In other news, I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.[/sarcasm]
Re:Dead Forests... (Score:3, Insightful)
I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.
It works much better without the sarcasm tags. Repeat that over and over, and perhaps you'll get it.
There is something wrong with such a lack of biodiversity, especially when you consider that approximately 40% of the land in the US is currently cultivated like this.
Re:+5 Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that trees grow back right?
They can plant new trees, but they can't bring back the ecosystem that was destroyed.
If printing itself didn't suck... (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: Paper recycling (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
While it has nothing to do with your main point about knot-free wood, the price drop has more to do with the high inventory of building supplies after a year of almost no building going on.
Re:Dead Forests... (Score:1, Insightful)
[sarcasm]In other news, I was shocked at the absolute lack of biodiversity the last time I walked through a wheat field. Imagine it: A huge field, hundreds of acres, where they've managed to grow almost nothing but wheat! What a waste.[/sarcasm]
You jest, but this really is a problem. This kind of monoculture is one of the reasons soil is losing its fertility, and needs the huge input of artificial (petroleum-based) fertilizers. It looks efficient in the short term, but it isn't sustainable.
You need to take a deeper look at things, and how they are connected to other things. Repeat that, over and over, until you get it.