The Environmental Defense Fund has a handy dandy paper calculator you can use (for free) that will show your impact, or lack there of, when it comes to paper use. Paper does create a big impact. Even though you can easily recycle it, many people don’t and even when you recycle paper there is still an impact, for example both the manufacturing process and recycling process use resources such as energy and water. Making better paper choices can help you to better conserve all sorts of resources – water, trees, energy plus limit other issues like pollution.
Using the calculator you can calculate and compare individual papers, such as if you’d like to compare the impact of a specific paper to an alternative paper choice that contains a smaller or higher recycled content. You can also compare paper groups which will help you determine the combined impact of all the paper you may generally use and compare that impact to the combined impacts of different papers you could be using that contain more recycled content.
The paper calculator allows you to create an easy-to-read report that you can use to help your company, community, non-profit or other organization make the best paper decisions possible. Plus this tool will clue you into the environmental impacts your decisions create. I thought the tool was very simple to use and questions in the calculator were well explained.
Beyond paper calculations the paper calculator page at the Environmental Defense Fund offers links to more useful info such as…
- The environmental benefits of recycled paper.
- Resources that can help you make smarter paper purchasing decisions.
- An excellent glossary of paper and eco-minded terms to browse.
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Post from: Blisstree