The Nag

DIY Nag # 43: The Paper Nag

How to help forests, climate, pollution and human rights in one go.

created by hag 11 months ago

The general idea

Go to the www.shrinkpaper.org website and make a pledge to use less paper, then act on it and tell your friends. Irresponsible paper producers trash forests, violate human rights, cause pollution and waste. Paper causes three times the climate change emissions of aviation. Please use less.

Why why why?

Using less paper can make the world a fairer place. By using more than six times the world average, most Europeans and North Americans are using far more than our fair share of the Earth's resources. Think how much better the world would be if current levels of paper production were used to make books for schools in poor nations instead of wasted office printouts and junk mail. Paper production causes a wide range of harmful environmental impacts, so by using less of it you can reduce your pressure on forests, cut energy use and climate change emissions, limit water, air and other pollution and produce less waste. There are also negative social impacts and human rights abuses linked to paper production, particularly in southern countries. Reducing demand for paper will help to address these too.

What do you want me for?

We want thousands of people to go to our website and pledge to use less paper. It's an easy thing to do - make a promise to use less - and it really works. Making a pledge to use less paper will help you to think about how ubiquitous this material is in your daily life, and the website is full of handy hints on how to reduce it. And the more people pledge, the stronger the signal we can send to big industry paper wasters like catalogue companies and junk mailers.

How? How? How?

Click on this URL - www.shrinkpaper.org - or copy it and put it into the address line of your web-browser. Hit 'Take The Pledge' and tick the paper saving actions that suit you best, then click on 'Click here to shrink'. The website will do the rest for you.

Who? Where? What? How Many? Can You Prove It?

Making a tonne of paper requires 98 tonnes of other resources.
Making a tonne of paper uses as much energy as making a tonne of steel.
Deforestation causes more climate change emissions than global transport.
In industrial countries, the paper industry is the biggest user of water.
65% of all print-outs and photocopies are binned before the end of the day.
North Americans and Europeans use more than 200kg of paper each per year, while the average African uses just 6.5kg.

15 people have done something similar. How was it for you?

Tags

paper | pledge | reduce | shrink