“Please consider the environment before …”
by Greg Krehbiel on 13 February 2013
Every once in a while I get an email with some text in the footer urging me to “consider the environment” before printing the email.
These things bug me for several reasons.
First, it’s often the footer on a junk email. If they’re so concerned about people printing too much, they should stop sending stuff for them to print! It’s like when somebody puts a flyer under the wiper on your car and it has a note: “please dispose of this responsibly.”
Second, I’m not convinced printing paper is bad for the environment. The young trees that are cut down to make paper use up more CO2 than older trees, and putting the paper in a landfill might actually be a net plus for the environment. I’m not saying that’s so, I’m just saying that at the level of analysis we’re dealing with here, it’s just as likely to be so.
Third, if we’re going to be “considering” things, what about the children who depend on their Dad’s paycheck from the paper mill, the copier repair place, the store that sells copier paper, and so on? What about the fact that sitting at your desk all day is incredibly bad for your health, so forcing yourself to walk to the printer every once in a while is a good idea? And reading off paper is better for your eyes.
Off the top of my head I can think of a lot more moral implications in the printing a piece of paper than “the environment,” and it’s just irritating for someone to imply that’s what I should be “considering.”
-- 2013-02-13 » Greg Krehbiel
16 February 2013 @ 9:15 am
Did you see Steven’s FB post where he was complaining about people at work asking him to set their computers to automatically print every email they read?
There are people like that. What was supposed to be a “paperless” revolution became a nightmare of resource waste because people printed way, way too much.
If it were only paper, and if paper were produced in a sustainable way, I would agree with the idea that raising fast-growing trees (or hemp, or bamboo, or whatever) to make paper to sequester in a landfill might be a good idea.
But there are other resources involved.
But on the subject of footers, if there were some way to avoid that extra page I keep getting that contains nothing but the URL of the page I just printed…
16 February 2013 @ 11:00 am
John, that last one makes me nuts. I don’t print that much, but the website I print from most does that all the time. Sure, I always have good intentions of leaving the extra sheet on top of the printer to use when I just want scrap paper, and I have actually used the paper for scrap like that….never.
16 February 2013 @ 7:56 pm
I use them in my chemistry class as scrap papers. I tear them into quarters and use them to make small drawings and example calculations for individual students, and as weighing papers for chemicals in labs.
17 February 2013 @ 1:18 pm
I think that many of the concerns about using paper are penny wise and pound foolish.
In some cases, paper files can be incredibly efficient. For example, if you’re making outbound telephone calls, you might be able to make twice as many calls using an intelligent, paper-based system rather than a paperless solution. It doesn’t make sense to double the size of your workforce so that you can save a few reams of paper,
18 February 2013 @ 4:26 pm
Dave — the problem is that “saving the environment” is a sacred value to some people, so efficiency doesn’t really matter.
If the small business owner has to wait an extra ten minutes in the morning for the copier to warm up because of the stupid “energy saving” button, nobody is going to do an honest cost-benefit analysis on that button. That would be like deciding between red wine and grape juice for communion based on price. It’s a sacred value. It’s dogma. It’s not something that you do math on.