As I look around our world, and my own personal environment, I sometimes feel as if we are afloat in a sea of paper.  In spite of the advance of the computer, paper continues to proliferate.  Is there a way to stop, or at least slow down the flow?

Where does paper show up in our lives?

Let’s start with the obvious: newspapers, magazines, and books.  Or how about giftwrap, craft supplies, and/or photos?  There are household products like toilet paper, paper towels, paper napkins, clean wipes, paper cups and paper plates, to name a few.  In our snail mail we receive catalogs, solicitations, advertisements, and, rarely, personal letters or invitations.  In the marketplace we get copies of purchase orders, checks, receipts, bills, packaging, and paper bags.  At work we process reports, personnel reviews, work orders, record keeping, and social invitations.  At school there are lesson plans, worksheets, tests, art projects, letters and permission slips. 

This is only the beginning and much of this paper flow winds up in our homes to be decided upon, acted upon, organized and filed, or tossed.  If you don’t stay on top of it, the sheer amount of paper can get overwhelming.  There are several excellent books on organizing paper, but in reality who wants to spend a good portion of each day moving paper from one place to the other?  The term “paper pusher” says it all.  Before organizing, try reducing the amount.

And what is the cost to the environment of all this paper?  First it takes trees to make paper, and chemicals to reduce it to pulp for papermaking.  Yes, some trees are replanted and treated as “renewable resources” but it still takes energy to cut and haul the logs to the mill, reduce the logs to pulp, produce the paper and ship it to market.  Chemicals that are used to make paper are released into the atmosphere, as anyone who has lived near a paper mill can attest.  Then there is the cleanup of paper waste, which winds up in landfills, usually encased in plastic bags.  I’m not arguing that paper has an important role in our lives and provides a good livelihood for people working in the industry.  I do wonder if we need to be as wasteful as we are with this wonderful invention.

So I’m challenging myself to reduce the paper flow.

Here are some ideas to start:

-Borrow, rather than buy, books and magazines.   Use the wonderful resources of public libraries and friends.

-Utilize online bill paying and electronic banking.

-Save information to electronic files, rather than printing.  Be sure to have a backup for those files in case the computer crashes.

-Get off catalog mailing lists and utilize websites instead.

-Use cloth napkins and cloth rags rather than their paper equivalents.

-Use china and glass for serving food rather than paper.

-Shred unwanted paper and use it for mulch.  Newspapers, excluding the colored and slick paper sections, can be used whole.

-Ask myself, do I really need to keep this, or can I get it again easily from another source?

-At work, place crucial reports in a centralized location for people to access, rather than printing out multiple copies.

-Bring re-useable bags when shopping.

Your turn:  Share with us your ideas for reducing the amount of paper in your life.

Resources and inspirations:

“It’s All Too Much: an Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff” by Peter Walsh.

“The Power of Less:  the Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life,” by Leo Babauta.

www.catalogchoice.org  (A free service to help you get off of catalog mailing lists). 

Next week:  Greenwashing