
WHY CONSERVE
- The average American uses more than 748 pounds of paper per year. 1
- Approximately 68 million trees are consumed each year to produce the catalogs and junk mail Americans receive annually, yet nearly half of this mail is thrown out unopened. 2
- Paper manufacturing is the third largest use of fossil fuels worldwide and the single largest industrial use of water per pound of finished product. 3
- Waste paper is America’s single largest export by weight. 4
- Discarded packaging represents over 30 percent of the soil waste buried in U.S. landfills each year. 5
- Approximately 5% of the resources used to produce a product are contained in the final product. The other 95% has been discarded during the production process. 6
- If everyone on the planet consumed as much as Americans, we would need 4 planet Earths to support the total amount of consumption. 7
- Printing inks and toner are the second largest uses of carbon black, which is primarily
derived from oil. Even the manufacture of soy-based inks typically involves the extensive use of diesel fuel, petroleum-based pesticides and herbicides. 8
- The United States, with only four percent of the world’s population, is responsible for 22% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.9
- The Northeast region of the U.S. is the 6 largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. 10
- More than a million species worldwide will be on the path to extinction by 2050 if business as usual continues. 11
- American Forest and Paper Association
- AIGA: Print Design and Environmental Responsibility
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things - By William McDonough & Michael Braungart, North Point Press, 2002
- Union of Concerned Scientists: Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions
- AIGA: Print Design and Environmental Responsibility
- StopGlobalWarming.org
- Union of Concerned Scientists: Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions
- Conservation International: New Cover Story Published In "Nature" Represents Most Comprehensive Analysis To Date