New campaign launched to help slow paper consumption world wide.

Excerpted from the Paper Planet…

This is how much paper an average British person gets through in a
year: more than 200kg, much of which is completely unnecessary.
Americans use even more: almost 300kg each, which is six times the
world average.

The launch of a new website www.shrinkpaper.org
highlights the issue of paper waste and gives people the chance
to pledge to cut their paper use. The site invites commitments to
reduce unnecessary and wasteful paper use, with suggestions on how to
limit all those leaflets, catalogues, tissues, photocopies and
packaging, and it tallies up the trees, carbon, water and pollution
saved by the cumulative pledges. Trot over there from here and be among
the first to make a pledge!

Why? Here are three reasons.

• Almost half (42%) of all industrially-logged trees end up as paper and too much of that logging is destructive.
• Globally, paper production and disposal releases three times as much climate change emissions as global aviation.
• Irresponsible
  production causes negative impacts on biodiversity and communities as
  well as human rights abuses in many pulp and paper producing region

The
Shrink website is part of a project that will target big companies as
well as individuals, encouraging them to make more efficient use of
paper. It is run by the European Environmental Paper Network, more than
50 environmental non-governmental organisations that all share a common vision for transforming the paper industry.