Save a Tree

     Can you really save a tree by reducing or recycling your paper products?  According to this statement on a website I would say the answer is "Yes!"   "Printing paper on both sides of the sheet—rather than on one side—is a classic example of paper waste prevention, as it can reduce the need for paper by up to 50 percent."  The article goes on to say,  "Prevention is the most environmentally preferable means to reduce paper waste. Even if all paper was recycled, there would still be a need for paper to be made from virgin resources, as individual paper fibers can only be recycled a finite number of times (generally 5-10). Paper waste prevention reduces the environmental impacts associated with both paper manufacture (including the demands on our forest resources) and paper recycling."

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     I am guilty of wasting paper.  I take one look at my trash can next to my desk and cringe.  The constant hum of my printer continually reminds me that I am using up a valuable resource.  I try to use both sides of my printer paper, but sometimes it is just cleaner and more efficient to only use one side.  I like to have my kids use my scrap office paper to draw on but I don’t always like other people to see what I printed out.  I prefer to cut up pieces of paper to use as scrap paper but "Post It’s" stay much neater.  My recycling boxes for magazines and newspapers are always overflowing and I’m not real comfortable with bringing office papers to the recycling center in town.  What is a person to do?

     All anyone can do is to try.  Try to reduce the amount of paper you use by printing on both sides of the paper.  Purchase recycled paper products and then recycle them again.  Make sure you need a hard copy of something before you print it and then use the print preview option to make sure it will print the way you want it.  You can also select specific pages of a document to be printed if you don’t need the whole document.  There are a number of ways to help save a tree and a number of great websites out there that will help you do it, so let’s all give it a try and see what happens.