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WHY BUY THESE PRODUCTS?
The Creation of Waste
From chapter 3: Ecology of Commerce (The Creation of Waste), page 40:
The combination of chlorines and hydrocarbons is known as the organochlorine family of compounds. It is presently sold and used in great quantities throughout the commercial world. Although most organochlorine compounds are produced intentionally, they can also be produced unintentionally. Dioxins, one of the most deadly family of compounds known to man, are created when chlorine bleaches are used to treat lumber or pulps, and also during incineration of other compounds. The family of organochlorines includes many famous chemicals now banned or restricted, such as DDT, chlordane, Mirex, Dieldrin, Heptachlor, all the PCBs, and the ozone-disrupting CFCs as well.
Organochlorines do not break down easily. They are remarkably persistent and long-lasting. Studies show that organochlorine compounds can last for decades, hundreds, even thousands of years. Hundreds of millions of pounds of these substances are released into the environment annually, usually in the form of a "product". Biologically speaking, these solvents, fungicides, pesticides, and refrigerants are waste from the very moment they are manufactured. They cannot be incorporated into the life cycle of any organism on earth. They are not biologic, but "toxilogic". They are building up in the environment and steadily accumulating in our water, food - and in our bodies. Because organochlorines do not break down in water, they accumulate in the fatty tissues of organisms. Because they are not metabolized, they are not excreted. If you need any proof of the ubiquity of organochlorines, know that, with every breath, you exhale between ten and twenty types of these compounds into the air. Species that are higher on the food chain, such as humans and whales, accumulate organochlorines to a far greater degree than might be anticipated by their exposure. Biologically speaking, our metabolic processes have little or no effect in rendering these substances into more harmless forms, because whales, swordfish, polar bears, and human beings have never in their evolutionary history encountered chemicals similar to organochlorines. The only commonly occurring organochlorine is made in the oceans, a simple compound called chloromethane that seems to play a vital role in atmospheric ozone regulation.
Because of the slow maturation of human beings, we have not had sufficient time since the introduction of such chemicals to understand the multi-generational health consequences of exposure to organochlorines. However, we do know that these compounds play havoc with human physiology, with effects that include cancer, infertility, immune suppression, birth defects, and stillbirths. In July 1991, a multidisciplinary conference was convened in Wisconsin to explore a little-known phenomenon: Organochlorines and other compounds, including some heavy metals, cause damage to the human body by disrupting the endocrine system which in turn interferes with the proper functioning of the immune system. The endocrine system is a network of ductless glands that secrete tiny amounts of hormones into our bloodstream and lymphatic system. It is a marvelously complex, informational network that is, in effect, the hands and feet of the nervous system, the means by which it regulates our bodily functions. The hormones secreted act as molecular messengers, governing the growth of individual cells within the body. Breakdown or malfunctioning of the endocrine system affects growth, metabolism, and reproduction, including the health of a fetus. What has troubled scientists for some time is that certain man-made compounds, particularly in the chlorinated hydrocarbon family, are mistakenly "recognized" by the human body as these hormone messengers, thereby signaling the wrong information to cells and body functions, information that is confusing the body, sometimes disastrously so.
The Wisconsin conference had taken on a certain urgency because evidence was clear that although patterns of disruption by these substances had been observed and analyzed in wildlife communities, in some cases as far back as several decades, similar problems appear to be showing up in human populations as well. What was so disturbing to the participants was that many of these compounds had been studied only for their carcinogenic and toxilogic properties, and now scientists were discovering equally insidious effects at far lower concentrations.
Because the compounds in question mimic the actions of natural hormones, binding to receptor sites in the body, they can alter the embryonic development of the organism in ways that are irreversible although the effects may not be experienced until maturity. When symptoms and diseases do occur, there is no way to trace their specific cause since no symptoms presented themselves in childhood. (This pattern is similar to the action of the synthetic estrogen DES {diethylstilbestrol}, given to pregnant women from the late 1940's until 1971 to prevent miscarriage. These mothers reported no serious side effects, but their daughters suffer today from high rates of cervical and vaginal cancer, abnormal pregnancies, and changes in the immune system.) Although scientists do not have proof, many believe that the dramatic but unexplained worldwide drop in sperm count and density among men may be an effect of endocrine-disruptor compounds. The decline in male fertility, which has been called "remarkable" by Professor Niels Skakkebaek of Copenhagen University, is based on the review of sixty-one papers and studies covering 15,000 men around the world between 1938 and 1990. Professor Skakkebaek suspects the cause to be environmental factors, because the drops have been accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in genito-urinary abnormalities and testicular cancer. In wildlife, these chemicals cause decreased fertility, behavioral abnormalities, compromised immune systems, and monstrous defects, such as fish born with both male and female sex organs but incapable of reproduction. They may eventually silence many other creatures besides frogs.
There is every reason to believe that concentrations of these compounds in wildlife and humans will continue to increase as they move up the food chain. But while their effects may already be present in the population, there is not sufficient evidence at present to predict how widespread they may be. Sterile men and women may be the first generation of victims, but because the embryo is extremely vulnerable to such disruptors, and because we are continuing to place more and different chemical disruptors into the environment, it is increasingly difficult to determine which series of compounds may be the casual agent. Human studies might have to be generational, in order to definitively establish an embryonic connection. Thus it will take many years to "prove" to the satisfaction of the chemical industry that its products present a threat, and the proof of may be inconclusive even then because there will be no control populations of human beings who have not been exposed. It would be akin to trying to study the effects of tobacco smoking in a population where every person smokes. Industry might not have its conclusive proof regarding the organochlorines until we have all become de facto guinea pigs. If the tobacco industry can still assert that there is no proven link between cigarette smoke and cancer, although every life and health insurance company mocks this claim with their discount rates for non-smokers, the chemical industry can likewise procrastinate for decades regarding the much more insidious organochlorines. Like cigarettes, the "justification" can be found in the math. A pesticide that costs $2 per gallon to manufacture can be sold for fifty times that price to a farmer.
The implication of recent studies on effects of these compounds on human development is that we have within the human race a biological ozone hole, a series of chemical compounds whose effect will expand throughout our entire world population for decades, even if all such compounds ceased being manufactured today. Tests show that these compounds have effects in very low concentrations, and because of their widespread use and ubiquitous presence, we face continuous re-exposure over our lifetime. At present, human exposure to such substances in the United States is well within the tolerances where hormonal disruption can occur. An accumulation of forty years' worth of such substances in the environment may require only a few minutes in the body at a critical time to cause genetic changes that are permanent and irreversible. The most disturbing suggestion of the research in this area is that because organochlorines clearly react with and disrupt sexual hormones, both androgens and estrogens, they can alter the function of the brain, and thus affect behavior, thought and intelligence.
In business as in science, the most important thing to know is what you don't know. Admitting one's ignorance can be a powerful inducement to caution. We do not know how long we can continue to create molecular-level toxic garbage that floats in the air, seeps into our water, lodges in the fat, targets our genes, and interacts with biological evolution, before life as we know it is irrevocably altered. It may be happening now, it may happen far into the future. No one knows, but when we do, it may be too late.
Paul Hawken's "The Ecology of Commerce, A Declaration of Sustainability", is available at most bookstores.
Click here to buy the book, The Ecology of Commerce, by Paul Hawken.
How much paper can be made from a tree?
Or, alternatively, how many trees are needed to make a given amount of paper?
There is no simple answer to these questions, and all calculations can be no better than "ballpark estimates."
Many people have heard the statistic that "a ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees." The "17 trees" number was popularized by Conservatree when it was a paper distributor, based on a report to Congress in the 1970s. It was calculated for newsprint, which is made in a totally different papermaking process from office and printing papers. But it was the best number anyone had, so it became "the number" everyone used to calculate number of trees saved by recycled paper, or number of trees cut to make virgin paper, no matter what type of paper they were talking about.
Paper is made from a mix of types of trees. Some are hardwood, some are softwood. In addition, some are tall, some old, some wide, some young, some thin. Many of the "trees" used to make paper are just chips and sawdust. So how can one talk about a "typical tree"? And do numbers calculated 30 years ago still apply to today's much more efficient paper industry?
Conservatree decided it was time to update these numbers, so they tracked down some ways to make ballpark estimates more reliable than in the past.
CONSIDERATIONS IN CALCULATING TREES TO PAPER
What kind of paper are you talking about?
Paper made in a "groundwood" process (e.g. newsprint, telephone directories, base sheet for low-cost coated magazine and catalog papers) uses trees about twice as efficiently as paper made in the "kraft" or "freesheet" process (e.g. office and printing papers, letterhead, business cards, copy paper, base sheet for higher-quality coated magazine and catalog papers, advertising papers, offset papers).
Is the paper "coated" or "uncoated"?
The fiber in a coated paper (most often used for magazines and catalogs, with a clay coating that may be glossy or matte, or other finishes) may be only a little more than 50% of the entire sheet, because the clay coating makes up so much of the weight of the paper. As a ballpark estimate, you can use .64 as the fiber estimate for coated papers compared to the entire weight of the sheet.
So how many trees would make a ton of paper?
Claudia Thompson, in her book Recycled Papers: The Essential Guide (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), reports on an estimate calculated by Tom Soder, then a graduate student in the Pulp and Paper Technology Program at the University of Maine.
He calculated that, based on a mixture of softwoods and hardwoods 40 feet tall and 6-8" in diameter, it would take a rough average of 24 trees to produce a ton of printing and writing paper, using the kraft chemical (freesheet) pulping process.
If we assume that the groundwood process is about twice as efficient in using trees, then we can estimate it takes about 12 trees to make a ton of groundwood and newsprint. (The number will vary somewhat because there often is more fiber in newsprint than in office paper, and there are several different ways of making this type of paper.)
SOME TYPICAL CALCULATIONS
-- 1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
-- 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
-- A "pallet" of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#) contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore, 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses .6 trees
-- 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets
-- 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly!)
-- 1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36)
-- 1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogs) uses nearly 8 trees (7.68)
How do you calculate how many trees are saved by using recycled paper?
-- (1) Multiply the number of trees needed to make a ton of the kind of paper you're talking about (groundwood or freesheet), then
-- (2) multiply by the percent recycled content in the paper.
For example,
-- 1 ton (40 cartons) of 30% postconsumer content copier paper saves 7.2 trees
-- 1 ton of 50% postconsumer content copier paper saves 12 trees.
All the preceding information is from: Conservatree 100 Second Avenue San Francisco, CA 94118 (415)721-4230 Fax: (509) 756-6987 paper@conservatree.com
http://www.conservatree.com Conservatree is an outstanding source of information regarding environmental paper choices.
In addition to the statistics above, consider the following:
It is estimated we have as little as 4-6% forest cover on our planet, compared to what existed as recently as 200 years ago. There is evidence our planet's land surface may have been covered by as much as 60% forest.
Native trees are habitat for many bird species, and other types of animals and wildlife. When we destroy their habitat, birds lose nesting sites, having no place to propagate their offspring. Consequently, their numbers dwindle. When we lose these insect-eaters, insect populations rise. As insect populations rise, we use more pesticides and toxic chemicals.
As we increase the use of chemicals, we become even more laden with toxins in our bodies, increasing the likelihood of cancers and other health-threatening illnesses. Tree Free paper and Processed Chlorine Free paper with post-consumer recycled content alleviate the continued loss of our few remaining native forests.
Purchase Mowalk Paper here.Mohawk Earns FSC Certification for Two 100% Recycled Products
COHOES, NY – In a first for the industry, Mohawk Paper Mills, Inc. has received Forest Stewardship Council [FSC] certification for two of its best-selling recycled paper lines: Mohawk Color Copy 100% Recycled and new Options 100% Recycled. Mohawk is the only mill to carry FSC certification on a 100% postconsumer recycled paper grade.
Originally applied to virgin-fiber papers, FSC certification is intended to help print buyers ensure that the paper they buy does not come from high-conservation old-growth forests. With this announcement, FSC has embarked on a pilot program to recognize products made with high percentages of postconsumer reclaimed materials.
“We are honored to have our products carry the FSC logo and pleased that FSC has agreed with us that 100% postconsumer waste is the ultimate expression of environmental responsibility,” commented George Milner, Mohawk’s Senior Vice President of Environmental Affairs. “As the commitment to corporate environmental and social responsibility has grown, more designers and print buyers are demanding products that reduce consumption of natural resources. The FSC certification has become increasingly important to large paper consumers who advocate sound environmental policies and support the purchase of sustainable products.”
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international organization that has developed criteria for certification to support the belief that “forest resources and associated lands should be managed to meet the social economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations.” Its mission is to give consumers the ability to confidently choose products that do not contribute to the degradation of forestlands, “but rather help to secure forest resources for the future.” FSC accomplishes this goal by accrediting certification organizations, which authenticate claims for specific products that meet FSC standards. Mohawk’s certification is issued under the Rainforest Alliance’s Smartwood Program (www.smartwood.org), certificate # SW-COC-668.
A commitment to environmental ethics
Mohawk’s FSC certification reflects a continuing commitment to ethical environmental practices and product development. According to Milner, “We have long advocated the importance of product certification in the area of green marketing. Organizations like FSC and Green Seal help consumers make sense of the sometimes confusing and contradictory claims in the marketplace.”
Mohawk backs up its environmental products with a strong history of environmental stewardship, which includes a commitment to energy conservation and alternative energy. A member of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, Mohawk recently became the first paper mill in North America to manufacture paper with non-polluting wind power. According to Tom O’Connor, Jr., president and C.E.O., “FSC certification is further evidence of the direct and positive impact we are making in providing forward-looking products to our customers while minimizing impact on the environment.”
Mohawk Paper Mills, Inc. is a leader in the manufacture of premium printing papers. From its flagship grade, Mohawk Superfine™, through proprietary Inxwell® products, Navajo® and Options®, Mohawk has engineered its papers to provide optimal performance for sheetfed, web and digital printing.
Press Information:
Client Contact:
Laura Shore
Mohawk Paper
518.233.6208
shorel@mohawkpaper.com
Agency Contact:
Pam Williams
Williams and House
860.675.4140
pwilliams@williamsandhouse.com
The effect of toner cartridges on ecology
As I've learned from The Natural Step, www.naturalstep.org and through reading Hawken's "The Ecology of Commerce", Anderson's "Mid-Course Correction - Toward a Sustainable Enterprise", and Benyus' "Biomimicry", our planet is a self-contained sphere, with a thin layer of life-sustaining resources. If the earth were a basketball, that layer would be a 1/16th inch band of life-supporting ecosphere!
We harvest resources so fast, converting them into dispersed toxins that can't be re-absorbed into earth's protective layers. They build, until one day, we re-create the toxic soup it took billions of years of Earth's natural, life-giving processes to "sweeten" -- enough for us to be able to inhabit it. Simple steps like buying recycled and PCF (processed chlorine free) office supplies are steps in achieving a livable future for our children.
As many as 60 million "all-in-one" toner cartridges are bought annually in the U.S. Worldwide, 150 million per year. Couple that with 400 million inkjet cartridges, and you begin to realize the amount of waste generated from cartridges that don't get recycled. As little as 25% of all toner cartridges actually get recycled and remanufactured.
Inkjet cartridges are very small. Even with an average weight of 0.2 lbs. and a conservative 10% recovery figure, you still have 72 million pounds of inkjet cartridges going to landfills yearly!
Consider each laser toner cartridge spared from the landfill reduces consumption of crude oil -- used to make the plastic in the cartridge -- (U.S. EPA estimates), by as much as ONE PINT! That equals a possible savings of 62 million gallons of oil saved through the purchase of remanufactured cartridges each time one is bought and used. A cartridge can be recycled and remanufactured many times over. The environmental benefits are enormous.
The average weight of an empty laser cartridge is 3 pounds. Subtracting the aftermarket share worldwide (25% of 150 million, leaving 112.5 million) and the OEM recovery rate (25% of 112.5 million, leaving 84.4 million), over a quarter billion pounds of toner cartridges needlessly end up in landfills each year! At an average size of .1458 cu. ft., the space consumed by 84.4 million cartridges is 12,305,520 cu. ft. Laid end to end, they span over 16,000 miles!
Whether it be paper products that are recycled-content, PCF, TCF, Tree Free, or printer toner cartridges that are remanufactured, we can all take simple steps amounting to huge gains on the "Ecological Balance Sheet".
As Mathis Wackernagel shows so convincingly, http://www.rprogress.org, we all leave our ecological footprint. It's just a matter of how small do we want that footprint to be? With 6 billion of us competing for space on this garden plot called Planet Earth, I contend we are leaving far too big a footprint. At current rates of consumption, we require the resources it takes three and one-half earths to generate. In financial terms, we're living off the principal and losing the interest, and we all know that leads to ecological bankruptcy.
It is simple things that add up to big differences in sustainability of our planet. Please buy remanufactured toner cartridges.
For additional information, see http://www.dolphinblue.com/gsa/tcart.html.
Many people ask "Why does recycled paper cost more than virgin?"
If you and I were to sit down and seriously analyze that issue, I think we may come to the conclusion that recycled paper does not cost more.
If we look at the environmental costs, costs to human health, costs to habitat of fellow species, and societal costs, I think we could honestly say recycled paper does not cost more.
The cost to subsidize the timber industry through roadbuilding, tax abatements they receive, giveaway of our forests at below-market pricing, the cost to loss of fisheries due to sedimentation of streams because of clearcutting of forests, siltation of formerly-fertile and productive marine breeding grounds (salmon, shrimp, lobster, crabs, etc.), the cost of loss to farmers (for instance Rodolfo Montiel and Teodora Cabrerra in Chiapas region of Mexico -- look up either name on an internet searchengine), and the loss of biodiversity due to replanting of monoculture species, (we can list many more "hidden costs"), we can undoubtedly show a story different than what we see on the receipt we get at purchase time.
That being said, yes, the receipt from purchases made at the register reflect recycled paper costing more, but we know that is not the final price we pay. Unfortunately, we human beings don't look at the whole picture when we make our purchase decisions, and don't seem interested in doing so, based on current results of our purchases.
(DolphinBlue.com paper prices include shipping to your door, no matter where we deliver. Paper is very heavy, and much of the cost of our paper is in the cost of delivery. We save you not only the hassle of taking your time to go pick it up, we also save you from experiencing the back pain!)
Conservation Conundrums: Why Does Recycled Paper Cost More?
We all know buying recycled paper is the right thing to do. It conserves forests, saves energy, and reduces global warming. It prevents air and water pollution. And it gives the paper we're recycling in our homes and offices a place to go. In fact, given all it saves, recycled paper should be both the best and cheapest option around.
So how come it still costs more?
It seems like an easy question: Why do recycled paper, and the products made from it, often cost more than virgin paper made from trees? After all, you need less energy, less water, and your raw material is already the finished product. Sounds like a recipe for simplicity itself and simple means cheaper. Right?
Not quite. The fact remains that recycled paper generally costs about 10-15% more than virgin paper. And figuring out why is anything but simple.
Understanding the complexities starts with one basic point: Raw recycled paper, the paper we recycle that gets sent to a paper mill to be made into new paper, is a commodity bought and sold on an open market. Governments and waste management companies collect this resource and sell it to dealers who sell it to mills. As with any commodity, whether it's crude oil or old newspapers, the prices fluctuate according to the laws of supply and demand. What costs $100 a ton today, may cost $110 tomorrow, and only $90 next week, depending on how much paper is available and how many people are looking for it. In fact, the market for recycled paper is often so unstable, it makes the new roller coaster at Six Flags look like a tricycle ride.
That's the first reason recycled paper often costs more -- the instability of the market leads to higher retail prices as companies attempt to give themselves a cushion against raw material cost fluctuations they can't control. Further complicating matters is the fact the price of raw recycled materials is almost always higher than the price of trees. There are a number of reasons for this, but one big one is that many of the trees used for paper come from forest lands owned by the paper companies themselves. This makes the price of trees both lower and more stable than the price of raw recycled paper.
Many paper companies also obtain raw materials from National Forests, and in doing so, benefit from a number of government subsidies that come in the form of things like federally -financed road building, cleanup and reforestation efforts, and below-market-pricing timber sales. When the government (i.e., you & me) pays for these things, timber companies don't have to, and virgin raw materials are obtained at artificially lower prices. With such subsidies exceeding $800 million a year, the effect on virgin paper costs is substantial. Recycling receives no such subsidies.
Tax breaks for cutting timber on private land increase the disparity further, and billions of investment dollars in landfills and incinerators encourage paper disposal instead of recycling, keeping recycled paper scarce and more expensive than it would otherwise be.
In the end, these government subsidies, tax policies, and investments mask the true costs of making virgin paper. It's artificially cheaper because paper companies don't have to pay the real price for extracting the raw materials, the deforestation that results, or the pollution that's created when paper is made. They don't have to internalize the (society's) external costs. If paper mill companies had to add all these things to their ledgers, recycled paper would suddenly be a good deal more economically attractive.
Points like these go a long way toward explaining why recycled paper costs more, even though so much less energy is used, so much water is saved, and so much pollution is prevented. The balance sheets and bean counters are simply able to leave many of the actual expenses of virgin paper manufacturing unaccounted and unpaid for.
All the aforementioned considerations are not the only reason for the recycled paper price disparity. We also need to be mindful that making recycled paper requires a different process than that needed in making virgin paper. Recycled paper must be collected, sorted, and graded "by hand". At the mill, it must be de-inked and cleaned of impurities like glossy coatings and adhesives, steps that require costly extra equipment. All these expenses are reflected in the final product price.
Originally, manufacturers hoped to recoup some of these costs by selling de-inked (recycled) pulp on the open market. New overseas mills have been dumping large amounts of cheap virgin pulp on the same market, undercutting this strategy, and forcing mill owners to pay off their investments through higher, recycled retail prices. Further, this flood of foreign paper pulp also forces domestic virgin prices down, further increasing the differential between virgin and recycled paper prices and making recycled paper look less attractive still to manufacturers. This makes mills even less willing to make additional investments in recycling technologies. (We told you this was complicated!)
A finally complicating factor is one of the most important: Traditional virgin paper-making is an old industry with a massive infrastructure in place and which has long-since been paid. Recycled paper-making is still in its relative infancy. Since much of the country's paper production is so well entrenched in the "old way", and since economies of scale mean that the more you make of something, the cheaper it is to sell, virgin paper claims yet another price advantage. The paper industry, at this point, can still turn trees into paper far more efficiently (cheaply), than it's able to turn paper into paper. The machines are bigger and there are many more of them. The supply lines of trees and virgin pulp are stable and well established. And that inexpensive overseas pulp lowers the price yet further.
Not all these factors are influencing the paper mills' pricing decisions all the time. Instead, the costs of recycled paper products are constantly subject to various shifting combinations of these many interconnected influences, combinations which can simultaneously differ from mill to mill and company to company. It's a very complex puzzle.
The most important thing to remember: it's critical consumers continue to recycle paper and seek recycled paper products, even though they currently cost a little more. Increasing demand coupled with new government policies and investment is the only way we're going to stop turning our forests into "stick-y notes", and start turning our wastes into something better.
For more information about recycled paper visit http://www.conservatree.com.
Conservation Conundrums: Why Does Recycled Paper Cost More? is from: Conservatree 100 Second Avenue San Francisco, CA 94118 (415)721-4230 Fax: (509) 756-6987 paper@conservatree.com Conservatree is an outstanding source of information regarding environmental paper choices. Check them out.
Chlorine...What Is it?
Chlorine is a toxic, yellow-green gas -- one of today's most heavily used chemical agents. As consumers, we're familiar with chlorine's role as a bleaching agent for paper, and an ingredient in household cleaners. When immersed in a concentrated bath of chlorine, the natural colors of things like cotton fibers and wood pulp disappear, leaving behind a bright white surface on which a dye or ink can be applied.
So... Where's the Problem?
Everywhere. The widespread use of chlorine is causing extreme risks to our health and environment. Unfortunately, the damage isn't easy to see. In fact, on October 27, 1993, the American Public Health Association unanimously passed a resolution urging American industry to stop using chlorine. Far from being America's household helper, and industry's best chemical friend, chlorine is something we should stop using right now.
What's So Bad About Using Chlorine to Bleach Paper?
Chlorine is used by the paper industry for two purposes. The first has to do with a substance called lignin. Lignin is the natural material a tree uses to hold its cellulose fibers together. Cellulose fibers are the raw material for paper. Because chlorine dissolves lignin, paper mills use it to rinse lignin out of the wood pulp needed to make paper. Once lignin is washed away, and the pulp is ready to be made into paper, chlorine is used again to make the paper white. When wood pulp or recycled paper is bleached, reactions taking place between chlorine, lignin, and cellulose fibers produce the most toxic substances ever created. The most dangerous of these includes a family of 75 different chemicals known as dioxins, and others called organochlorines.
How Does Paper Get White Without Using Chlorine?
The most widely used method is with hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydrosulphite, totally safe bleaching agents that work as well as chlorine. The only byproducts that result when paper is bleached with these chemicals are oxygen and water.
How Does Paper Bleaching Affect Me?
The wastes that paper mills discharge into the environment after paper is bleached contain dioxins. Dioxins don't readily break down, which means that over the years, they've been accumulating in our air, water, and soil. Once there, they enter the food chain and we're exposed to them through the food we eat. Dioxins are now so widespread in the environment that virtually every man, woman, and child has them in their bodies. Each day we ingest 300-600 times more than the EPA's "safe" dose. As they accumulate inside us to critical levels, the effects begin.
Dioxins are deadly. In fact, dioxins are believed to be the most carcinogenic chemicals known to science. The U.S. EPA's Dioxin Reassessment has found dioxins 300,000 times more potent as a carcinogen than DDT (the use of which was banned in the U.S. in 1972). Recent research conclusively linked dioxins to cancer, reproductive disorders among adults, deformities and developmental problems in children, and immune system breakdowns. Dioxins can cause these effects at exposure levels hundreds of thousands of times lower than most hazardous chemicals.
Like dioxins, organochlorines are extremely long-lived, highly efficient travelers, spreading throughout the global environment. Every human carries organochlorines in their body. Scientists are concerned about these chemicals because they believe when organochlorine molecules enter the body, they mimic hormones, the natural substances we produce in minute quantities to regulate our bodies' functions. Because organochlorine molecules are shaped like hormone molecules, they slip into cells in place of hormones and cause terrible effects, which include lowering IQ, reduced fertility, genital deformities, breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, dramatic reductions in sperm counts, and abnormalities within the immune system through a process called endocrine disruption.
What Can I Do to Protect My Family from the Hazards of Chlorine?
One of the most important things you can do is buy paper products that aren't bleached with chlorine. Seventh Generation makes paper towels, napkins, facial tissue, and bathroom tissue that are Processed Chlorine Free. Using Seventh Generation, DolphinBlue.com, or any other company offering Processed Chlorine Free paper products protects our environment during their manufacture by preventing the release of dioxins that poison our air, water, and food. Processed Chlorine Free paper products protect you at the office and at home.
Where Can I Learn More About the Dangers of Chlorine?
Many dedicated organizations and individuals work to achieve a chlorine-free world. You can help by voting against chlorine use by purchasing products made without it. Get in touch with some of these organizations:
Greenpeace International
1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009.
(202) 462-1177
http://www.greenpeace.org/toxics.html
Reach for Unbleached
Box 39, Waletown, BC, Canada, V0P 1Z0.
(250) 935-6992
email: info@rfu.org
http://www.rfu.org
Center for Health, Environment & Justice
P.O. Box 6806, Falls Church, VA 22040.
(703) 237-2249
email: cchw@essential.org
The Chlorine Free Products Association
102 North Hubbard, Algonquin, IL 60102.
(847) 658-6104
http://www.chlorinefreeproducts.org
Information in this article from:
Seventh Generation, Inc. 212 Battery Street Suite A Burlington, VT 05401-5281
phone 802.658.3773
fax 802.658.1771
http://www.seventhgen.com
99% of all white office paper is bleached heavily with chlorine gas or some form of chlorine. Research has shown chlorine to be an endocrine disruptor, and when chlorine is mixed with virgin wood pulp, other toxins like DIOXIN, organochlorines, and furans are formed. These are toxins dangerous to human health, and to all living creatures. They usually end up exiting paper mills as effluent, entering our waterways.
Our envelopes and New Life DP 100 Office Copy Paper are whitened with Hydrogen Peroxide, which is environmentally benign.
By purchasing our PCF Envelopes and New Life DP 100 Copy Paper, you are not only saving forest habitat, you are also helping clean up our water ecosystems by supporting an environmentally responsible paper mill that uses no chlorine in the making of paper used for our envelopes.
And, please check out our other PCF paper products.
Why Population Growth Matters to the Future of Forests
The world's forests provide goods and services essential to human and planetary well-being. But forests are disappearing faster today than ever before. Due both to deforestation and human population growth, the current ratio of forests to human beings is less than half what it was in 1960. Yet we not only need more forests, we need forests more than ever before to protect the world's remaining plant and animal life, to prevent flooding, to slow human-induced climate change, and to provide the paper on which education and communication still depend. More efficient consumption of forest products and eventual stabilization of human populationa prospect that appears more promising today as birthrates decline will be needed to conserve the world's forests in the coming millennium.
Forest Cover is Decreasing...
Half of the world's original forest cover is gone, a loss that reflects humanity's intensive use of land since the invention of farming. Of the forest that remains, less than one-fourth could be considered relatively undisturbed by human activity. The vast primeval forests of Europe and Asia survive today only as patchwork remnants of secondary growth, much of it vulnerable to logging, encroachment by development, pollution, fire and disease.
Forests are currently expanding in much of the industrialized world, while shrinking in most of the developing world. In just the first five years of the 1990s, 65 million hectares of forest–an area the size of Afghanistan– were converted to other uses in developing countries. By contrast, the industrialized countries gained 9 million hectares of forested land, an area about the size of Hungary. The pattern of forest loss in developing countries today differs from past losses in Europe and elsewhere in two key respects: human populations are much larger than before, and the pace of deforestation is more rapid. In the last four decades, an area half the size of the United States has been cleared of tropical forests, while population in developing countries has doubled to 4.7 billion. Among the most encouraging trends for the future of forests is the fact that fertility and birthrates are now declining in developing countries, leading demographers to revise downward their projections of future population growth.
A new measure of forest resource availability helps illustrate the increasing scarcity of forests in many countries. The forest-to-people ratio– a simple division of a country's forest cover by its population–helps quantify the number of people living with low levels of forest resources both now and in the future. Using a ratio of 0.1 hectare of forest cover per person (roughly a quarter acre) as a benchmark reveals that 1.7 billion people now live in 40 countries with critically low levels of forest cover. Many are vulnerable to scarcities of key forest products such as timber and paper and risk the collapse of vital forest services such as control of erosion and flooding in populated areas. In some countries the forest-to-people ratio declines even though forests expand, simply because their populations grow more rapidly than their forests. By 2025, based on United Nations data on deforestation and projected population growth, the number of people living in forest-scarce countries could nearly triple to 4.6 billion. Many are unlikely to have the options of wealthy countries to import or use substitutes for forest products and the environmental services forests provide.
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