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Reducing Paper Use

Cynthia Macdonald

University of Toronto Magazine, Summer 2010

For most of us, recycling paper has become automatic: we hurl those scrunched-up balls into the recycling bin and not the garbage can. But in doing so, are we really doing enough for the environment?

“Recycling requires energy, and it’s also associated with pollution,” says Elah Feder (MSc 2007), the co-ordinator of a major paper conservation effort at the St. George Campus. “So that’s something that we really want to emphasize – it’s reduce first, recycle after.”

At the Gerstein Science Information Centre, the printers now print on both sides of the page. “Just that will save up to 100,000 sheets a year,” marvels Isaac Muise, a fourth-year environment and resource management student who’s implementing the library component of the paper reduction program by trying out new ideas at Gerstein. “We’re also going to put instructions on photocopiers so that people can print double-sided, and set up paper reuse stations, which is kind of like a ‘take a penny, leave a penny’ situation.”

It’s not only the quantity but the quality of paper used at the university that’s being examined.

Unfortunately, paper derived from sustainable means (instead of a virgin forest) often costs more – though Feder points out that savings from the effort to reduce paper use would make it affordable. “We’re challenging departments to cut their paper consumption by 50 per cent within the next two years,” she says, “and to purchase recycled paper with a sustainable certification wherever possible.”

Changing the culture of paper use is sometimes an uphill battle, Franklin admits. Many instructors will not accept double-sided essays, citing “pedagogical” reasons; essays submitted on scrap paper meet with even greater opposition.

Feder estimates that the U of T community uses some 100 million sheets of paper per year, and produces much unnecessary waste. Thanks in part to her efforts, the school has stopped ordering thousands of phone books it doesn’t need. But she says the aim is not to go completely paperless, since “there are impacts associated with electronics that we need to consider. We’re not saying eliminate paper: we’re saying eliminate waste.”

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