The Bite:
Go for less substance, more style. Try conserving paper during the school year by using email, scrap, and recycled paper. These simple steps are a perfect fit for saving cash, time, and trees.
Back-to-School Week: Conserving Paper
Not so impressed with the paper piling up around your house?
08.20.2009
Submitted by alara on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 11:00pm.
The Benefits:
- Taking a closer eco-look. Each year Americans use about 741 pounds of paper per person, most of it made from virgin trees. Flipping over a scrap piece or sending an email saves forests.
- Savings beyond appearances. Using scrap paper for assignments or corresponding with teachers by email spares your wallet too. Every ream of paper you don't buy = $6 at least.
- Finding a clean-cut option. Buying paper that's processed without chlorine bleach keeps the stuff out of rivers and oceans, easing the strain on marine life.
Personally Speaking:
Wanna Try:
Strategies
Recycled Paper
Look for the Biter's Guide to Back to School...coming soon on idealbite.com.
- Set up a mass email list for parents (that teachers can use too) for stuff like announcements, organizing field trips, and class birthday party invites.
- Skip envelopes. Send back forms to school by tri-folding them, and sealing with a staple-less stapler.
- Collect scrap sheets from the mail, flyers, or notices the school sends home, and use them for assignment drafts or work sheets.
- Print assignments double-sided.
Recycled Paper
- Aspen Presentation Laser Paper - computer printer paper that's 30% postconsumer waste (PCW) ($10/500 sheets).
- Ampad EnviroTech Recycled Filler Paper - college-ruled, three-hole punched binder paper; 100% PCW with no added chlorine ($7/100 sheets).
Look for the Biter's Guide to Back to School...coming soon on idealbite.com.
Timeout
Mama Biter Jen Duckworth (here with Fiona, 6) is a fan of the no-envelope policy - it only backfired once when she, um, stapled the check through the bank routing numbers.
Bang For The Bite
If 10,000 student Biters reuse just one piece of paper a day for an assignment instead of grabbing a fresh sheet, in a year we'll save 317 trees.
Tips Like This
01.07.2009
03.06.2009
Sign Up
Sign up for free, bite-size ideas for healthy, light green living, delivered to your inbox each weekday.
Post new comment