DO YOUR BIT TO SAVE OUR TREES.

Facts About Recycling Paper

Learning the facts about recycling paper will help you as you fulfill your part to keep our environment green. You only need to look around you to see that paper is everywhere and of course, the need for it is essential. If we keep our minds focused on the desire to be friendly to our Earth and her resources, recycling will become important. After a while, we will be in the habit of recycling the paper we use in the course of a given day. Likewise, we will teach our children so that recycling becomes as common and familiar as ABC.

Why Recycle Paper?

Statistics available show the following:

• A typical office generates about 455gms of paper per employee and that from that paper, 77 percent of what is wasted in offices across the country is recyclable.
• Most of the paper wasted is high grade paper.
• Using old paper to make new paper uses 30 to 50 percent less energy than making paper from trees.
• Pollution is also reduced by 95 percent when used paper is made into new sheets.
• 40 percent of all waste going to landfills is paper. Cutting down on paper waste will extend the lives of our landfills.
• Newspaper can be recycled into egg cartons, game boards, new newspaper, gift boxes, animal bedding, insulation and packaging material.
• Office paper is recycled into paper towels, tissue paper and toilet paper.
• Corrugated cardboard is created into new cardboard and cereal boxes.

With these facts about recycling paper the multiple benefits to the environment are obvious.

What Can be Recycled

The following cardboard and paper items can be placed in the recycle bins to be recycled:

• White paper
• Colored paper
• White and colored envelopes with windows
• Booklets
• Manuals
• Fax and telex copy paper
• Adding machine tape
• Carbon-less forms
• Post-It notes
• Soft-covered books with white pages
• Time cards
• Greeting cards (see Note below)
• Manila folders
• Telephone directories
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Flyers

Non Acceptable Items for Recycling

The following are not accepted in recycling bins:

• Pizza boxes (unless they have the recycling symbol on them, showing they are made of corrugated cardboard; some pizza restaurants are becoming more eco-friendly)
• Coffee cups
• Candy wrappers
• Tissues
• Paper towels
• Carbon paper
• Brown and kraft envelopes

Note:

Avoid creating additional waste this Christmas by considering how to recycle Christmas cards. This helps to reduce the huge amount of paper and card stock which is placed into landfill sites, and importantly, can help reduce the call on virgin materials and the energy used to create and process them.

Christmas cards are an important part of the festive season. They are a great way to send a greeting to people that perhaps you do not see often. A Christmas card can bring a huge amount of pleasure to people and can help to stop people and families from getting out of touch with each other. The downside, however, is the huge amount of paper and card that is used each year. Envelopes that get thrown away immediately and cards that remain on display for only a couple of weeks are unfortunately a poor use of resources.

Recycling Christmas cards is an ideal way to ensure that they do not just end up rotting in landfill sites. Christmas cards are often printed on high quality card stock and can be used in a variety of ways.

Karen my wife, recyles greeting cards into small gift boxes or gift tags.