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Paper Shocking Statistics
Read some of the shocking stats below to understand why something as un-sexy as paper is so important to conserve.
Return to We Challenge You to Reduce Your Paper Use page.
Office Paper Use
- In this decade, it is projected that Americans will throw away over 4 and a half million tons of office paper and nearly 10 million tons of newspaper. Almost all of this material could be recycled. #
- In 1991, there were more than 7 million copiers in operation in the U.S. These copiers produce nearly 400 billion copies per year (almost 750,000 copies a minute). (The Recycle Planner, 1992) #
Paper Based Faxing
- 12,500 sheets of paper can be made from 1 tree **
- 210 billion sheets of paper are consumed by faxing in US companies every year. **
- 10,000 sheets of paper per year are used by a single US office worker **
- 95% of this paper will eventually be thrown away unrecycled. **
- 4 trees per year are cut down to feed the fax requirements of an average US company. **
- 17 million trees per year are cut down to supply fax paper for the US as a whole **
Paper Waste
- Every year enough paper is thrown away to make a 12’ wall from New York to California. #
- The amount of wood and paper we throw away is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years ^^
- If every household in the U.S. reused a paper grocery bag for one shopping trip, about 60,000 trees would be saved. (S.C. Office of Solid Waste Reduction, 1996) #
Recycling
- One ton of recycled paper saves 3,700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water. #
- One ton of recycled paper uses: 64% less energy, 50% less water, 74% less air pollution, saves 17 trees and creates 5 times more jobs than one ton of paper products from virgin wood pulp. #
- Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees (35’ tall), 2 barrels of oil (enough fuel to run the average car for 1260 miles or from Dallas to Los Angeles), 4100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for 6 months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space (one family size pick-up truck) and 60 pounds of air pollution. (Trash to Cash, 1996) #
Trees
- It takes one 15-year old tree to produce half a box of paper. (Midpoint International) #
- One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year. #
- Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. **
Newsprint
- Recycling a four-foot stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of one 40-foot fir tree. #
- Everyday Americans buy 62 million newspapers and throw out 44 million. That’s the equivalent of dumping 500,000 trees into a landfill every week. #
- If everyone in the U.S. recycled just 1/10 of their newsprint, we would save the estimated equivalent of about 25 million trees a year. #
- It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times. #
- If we recycled all of the newspapers for one Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees or about 26 millions trees per year. (CA Dept of Conservation, 1995) #
