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.
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
last i checked paper was made from the waste from milling timber from sustainably managed forests as well as recycled sources.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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)
> 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: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, Informative)
Damn right. I recently helped a business reduce 60K in monthly paper costs. Just by purchasing a few thousand dollars worth of signature capture pads, configuring some terminal servers, and setting up some signing certs.
According to this gentleman up there in Canada, we were all motivated by misconceptions and our dire need to protect the horny spotted dwarf owl or something.....
It had nothing to do with the immediate savings of materials costs and long term savings of derived from increased worker productivity since they were not spending 5 minutes, printing, signing, and scanning.
Yep.... all about the environment over here.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
My company used to get a lot of documents from our customers and then forward them to various government agencies. Those agencies required us to keep paper copies of the forms so that we could re-submit them if they ever lost the copies that we'd sent to them.
Eventually, our customers started submitting the information on the forms to us electronically. We'd fill them out, print the required copy for our records, and mail a copy to the gov't agencies.
After a while, the agencies went mostly paperless and all
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
"If they even manage to decrease the decline from 4% to 3%, they've succeeded in saving a lot of people's jobs."
Broken windows.
I would rather see those people get work in manufacturing things that are actually useful... most of the skills along that chain are entirely transferable. Of course, then we might have to retake some of our manufacturing from China, and the only way that could be made viable is to raise tariffs such that they are equivalent to the drain on our economy caused by shipping the work overseas in the first place. I ain't holding my breath.
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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 s
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I don't think anybody's saying that. It's just ridiculous that this guy is complaining about companies putting "think before you print" messages at the bottom of emails to discourage people from transferring information to a (typically) LESS useful medium and wasting resources in the process. Also, reaching out through Facebook and Youtube to "resonate with youth" about paper-based printing is beyond stupid.
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:wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the last decades, my country has been planted with millions of eucalyptus and wild pines, that are completely alien, to produce paper.
The results: We have almost no native forest, every summer there are big wild fires all around the country, the eucalyptus suck all the water from kilometres around, ruining the few farmers and herders that still subsist.
The planting areas that were abandoned because of fires of owner carelessness are now bare, completely exposed to soil erosion. These areas are will eventually become desert land in the next years if nothing is done.
Of course, the government could step in and take two measures:
But in these days of free-market fundamentalism, the government can't do shit because it would go against the "legitimate rights" of the land owners or something. When the whole country looks like Saudi Arabia without the oil, the land owners can stuff their legitimate rights up their asses and try to survive eating sand.
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It is an environmental problem because natural forests are ruined to grow different kinds of trees which are easier to transform into paper. This is also an environmental problem because the paper industry uses and certainely rejects a lot of chemical products in order for your paper to be white (mostly).
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Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
People frequently forget about all those pesky middle parts.
Trees are harvested. They're transported to the location making the paper. It's packaged and distributed to various tiers of warehouses. It's then distributed to retail outlets, and then to the point of use. From there, it's distributed to waste or recycling centers, or specialized centers for proper destruction. I'd be willing to bet the carbon footprint for the transportation is higher than the trees themselves that are used in the process.
Someone had a good point. The carbon is sequestered, assuming the paper is kept. Most places have more paper going in the trash than they do staying in long term storage.
When I was a kid, my parents took about 10 acres of empty land and planted trees on them. It consumed a good bit of time and fuel. Try planting rows upon rows of trees, and you'll find it's not a job to be done by hand. My dad passed away and my mom eventually moved. Google Maps satellite view showed the land to still be full of trees, but the street view (more recent) showed it to have been clear cut for other purposes. I'd guess by the person who bought the house (at least two owners later who renovated it) to sell the entire property as a horse farm. Dense trees don't make for good grazing land for livestock.
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).
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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.
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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 pro
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Before you made this claim you might have benefited from a drive around British Columbia or eastern Washington and Oregon. Unfortunately, giant trees are routinely chipped. I agree with you that it's utterly stupid, and I wish that you were right that this beautiful wood was only going to appropriate purposes, like making beautiful homes or cabinetry.
There's a bit of a mixed metaphor when I talk about 100-year-old maples. The point is that there's a lot of second-growth forest around the U.S. in areas
Re:wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
He is half kidding. Paper company plant quick growing trees and not these pesky maple tree, oak or any slow growing trees. And not only because they are quick to grow, but because they are quick to grow they are also of lesser density thus they are more easy to reduce to pulp to make paper.
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.
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And of course that is just the paper itself.
There's also all the ink, toner, cartridges, drums etc that get manufactured, packaged, transported, stocked, sold etc. And printers themselves are getting more flimsy and disposable too. And then the power used by printing...
Yeah, printing sure is good for the environment.
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:wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
+5 Funny (Score:2, Funny)
Re:+5 Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Re:+5 Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, he might be on to something. I just printed this article out and it's a helluva lot funnier in print.
And on paper you can't be modded down.
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Oh, he knows its an environmental negative. 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.
And this is why capitalism* has failed.
* as practiced today through the legal construct of a corporation
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.
Carbon Sequestration (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [tlb.org] (scroll to the bottom)
Re:+5 Funny (Score:4, Funny)
It's not an environmental "negative". They plant three times as many trees as they harvest.
If this is allowed to continue then we'll soon be crowded out by exponentially renewing pines! We have to stop this process now!
Re:+5 Funny (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose you harvest an acre of hundred-year-old trees, and you plant three acres of trees. Next year, you harvest a second acre of hundred-year-old trees, and plant three more. In thirty-three years, you will have cut down 3,300 acre-years of growth. You will have replaced it with 1680 acre-years of growth. Not even counting the fact that you've destroyed 33 acres of quality second-growth forest and replaced it with 99 acres of farmed forest.
So when you hear "we plant three for every one we cut," just bear in mind that the person saying this to you is definitely trying to deceive you. There is no other possible motivation for that statement, because what they cut is in no way comparable to what they put in its place. They are mining the forest, and leaving you with the tailings.
If they were planting real second-growth forest, and if they were going to be around for a hundred years, then we could talk about environmental improvements, but that's not at all what this guy is talking about. Or if they were planting barren fields and harvesting the trees years later when they'd grown enough, you could say that they'd planted a crop and harvested it. But that's not what they said, and it's not even close to what they're doing.
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Suppose you harvest an acre of hundred-year-old trees, and you plant three acres of trees. Next year, you harvest a second acre of hundred-year-old trees, and plant three more.
That's not how the paper industry works. They use tree farms of quick-growth species (another poster suggested that they can grow a usable tree in as little as 5 years). Hundred-year-old wood is too expensive to use for making paper, anyway.
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Cut trees are used for whatever brings the most profit. You talk about the paper industry like it's a single monolith, but it's actually a lot of little companies and big companies, each of which has their own practices. So what you say is probably true about some company or set of companies that you've had personal experience with, but it's not universally true.
And whether what you say is true for this particular paper company or not, making that nice paper you can put into your laser printer is nontri
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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 zeal
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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.
Everything you said above is true, but none of it contradicts the parent poster's argument. Just because he's (arguably) a hypocrite doesn't mean he's not right.
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.
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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.
Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459, 170 N.W. 668 (1919).
It is perhaps not the best citation (it's almost 100 years old and has been superseded somewhat). But it is so famous even I heard of it.
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If that were so, every dot-com era CEO would be in steel cages right now. And that is demonstrably NOT so.
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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.
It's a lovely excuse, but legally unenforceable and a bit silly. How many executives have you seen dragged into court for not being ruthless enough? How would a judge even be able to determine whether an executive had "done the most he could", or not? The truth is, executives have pretty wide latitude to do what they want, and as long as they a
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There is no such requirement except in the delusions of people who need reasons to dislike capitalism. Don't like what the CEO is doing? Appoint a new board of directors who pushes for the agenda you want.
If a company is amoral than you know what that means? That the shareholders don't give a damn. They want their profit and that's it. The profit is very close to them while the ill effects are very far. Basic human nature ingrained by millions of years of evolution. The tribe over the hill doesn't have your
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man, you need to learn some more jokes if you laughed that hard over this...
funny? maybe, but not side-splitting funny...
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You do realize that trees grow back right?
They can plant new trees, but they can't bring back the ecosystem that was destroyed.
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
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Unfortunately some parts of the world [wikipedia.org] are only too happy to cut down their old growth forests for wood chips.
Re:I don't worry much about paper (Score:5, Informative)
From a 2006 NYT article [nytimes.com]:
. . .
The most harmful part of the process is paper production. Breaking down wood fiber to make paper consumes a lot of energy, which in many cases comes from coal plants.
Printing is a HASSLE (Score:4, Informative)
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!
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?
Re:Pulp paper should die! (Score:5, Interesting)
DAMN IT. I've had mod points rewarded to me twice in a row over the last week or so and I finally find a post with a poor mod rating that I'd like to mod up. The increased efficiency in terms of land and resources used for hemp paper versus tree paper is huge. On top of that, for all you puritans out there, it is well within our means today to grow strands that contain virtually almost no THC making the worry over individuals getting high off the crop non existent.
FYI (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A couple years ago, I was out at one of my relatives' farm, and noticed one of his fields was growing hemp. I wonder who they sold it to, and what it was made into.
This was in Canada though, might be different. I'm not sure if it's becoming common here or not, or what they're purposing it for, and what sort of regulatory headache it involves.
I thought it was interesting though. I'm all for more diverse, sustainable crops.
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Nothing to do with earth crunchy I am afraid.
Hemp clothing is great lasting. I had a pair of hemp jeans that lasted 5 years before wearing out. Normal cotton lasts a year if I am lucky.
That is propbably why we dont see much hemp clothing it lasts to long!
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.)
Re:Pulp paper should die! (Score:4, Informative)
Hemp paper is available, but it's more far more expensive than paper from wood pulp.
When you add a boat or plane to the supply chain because it's totally illegal to grow in the USA, no shit it's more expensive
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Re:Pulp paper should die! (Score:4, Informative)
Not so, unfortunately. First off, only the unfertilised flowers produce plenty of THC. This means you have to keep the male plants far away. Doable, there's even something called 'feminised' seeds, but still a bother.
A bigger hurdle, however, is that the smokey stuff is Cannabis Sativa. The stuff used to make paper, rope and other hemp products, is Cannabis Indica, which doesn't make a particularly good smoke.
It's not individuals that paper companies need... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [ign.com] [Ubisoft Removing Paper Game Manuals]
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I'm in the same boat. I printed so infrequently that about 4 years ago when my printer ink dried up from lack of use I didn't bother to replace it. Literally, the only thing I was ever printing was Mapquest directions. Eventually I decided that it just wasn't worth the printer and ink cost to print 10-15 pages per year and I just started jotting the directions down in a notebook when I needed them. A bit more hassle, sure, but given the limited occurrences it was worth it. Now, portable GPS systems hav
Environmental? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Ideally of course, the carbon would be locked into oil and other fossil fuels deep inside the earth where it can't harm anyone. But we bring that stuff out and don't know how to put it back again.
Re:Environmental? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Chiefly, it's the chemicals used in processing pulp and the resulting pollution. Ever live near a paper mill? Even after the reforms thirty years ago, it's still a pretty nasty business. Secondarily, a fairly large amount of energy is involved in the harvesting, chipping, and transport of wood chips to the mills. (The mills themselves are actually very energy-efficient, deriving a significant amount of their power from burning the waste wood products, which is basically carbon-neutral.) Then there's the energy involved in transporting the paper products and toxic compounds in a lot of the inks used, as well as the highly toxic solvents used in cleaning and maintaining large-scale printing presses -- for which reason brownfield sites formerly used for printing are quite cheap, if you can afford the necessary cleanup and remediation, anyway.
As with anything else, it is best not to be wasteful and to remember that, for practically any consumer good, a considerable amount of energy was consumed to bring it to you, along with (most likely) a non-trivial amount of pollution. Use more is almost always bad advice.
That said, your point about the manufacture (and disposal) of electronic hardware is spot-on. The paper industry is squeaky clean by comparison.
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could be worse (Score:2, Funny)
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don't get me wrong, i know it can't be all hugs and kisses, i eat meat and i understand the reality of eating meat. I'm ok with it at long as the animals got to live a content enough life and were slaughtered in a humane manner (which most are, and i vote with my wallet getting free range meat).
but shit like puppy mills is one of the few things that makes me truly angry. the animals suffer so much
HP is much smarter (Score:2)
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Their cheap seats aren't even worthy of execration at this point, and even their nicer stuff isn't what it used to be(Hey guys, y'know what was a great idea? Releasing a print driver that crashes the print spooler service if somebody prints a PDF...)
And a Thousand Trees... (Score:2)
In Other News (Score:2)
Many posts about fast growing trees farmed 4 paper (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> 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 ther
Enemy of The Free Market (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
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)
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Dead Forests... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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]
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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.
What's Next? (Score:5, Funny)
"This page intentionally left black." - sponsored by HP Toner and Ink Division.
iPad = printer (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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In the best case, paper is CO2 neutral. On average it is still CO2 positive. Not that I mind. :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:4, Informative)
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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 p
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:5, Informative)
...environmentalists are just too stupid to recognize that paper is a carbon dioxide SINK
Redo.
Read this analysis [versopaper.com] 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.
Re:Paper and Environment (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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I thought about that recently in Malaysia. My wife's relatives's children go to school with school bags on wheels because of the number of books they have to carry. Its mad.
Re: (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
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:The concept of environmental friendly (Score:5, Informative)
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.