By Robin Elton •
March 14, 2009
With three kids in three different schools, I am buried in paper; the running joke in our household is that I have more homework than my kids do. Easily three-quarters of what comes home goes straight into the recycling bin. Multiply that by over 5000 children in our school district and the mind boggles.
Isn’t there a better way to get information to parents?
One Pennsylvania school thinks so. Liberty elementary school in Harrisburg now sends school papers electronically through a free website on Shutterfly. Nearly 90% of the parents at that school opted for the online version- the remainder still preferring paper or lacking home internet access.
Back-to-school preparations traditionally mean stocking up on lots and lots of paper stuff: filler paper, notepads, laser paper, construction paper, folders and, of course, lots and lots of books. And while students are becoming increasingly eco-aware, a lot of those paper things on their shopping lists are impossible to buy used: notepads and printing paper have to be pristine and even many textbooks become quickly and uselessly out of date.
So what’s a conservation-minded student or teacher to do? Here are some suggestions:
By Amiel Blajchman •
August 21, 2008
How many bills do you get per month? If you’re like the vast majority of North Americans, you get a boatload. And every month, you probably take one look at them, pay the bill, and then shred it and toss it into your recycling bin.
While I still get excited when I get mail that is addressed to me, I’m not quite as excited about it when it turns out to be yet another bill. Recently though, I’ve found some services that have let me avoid getting bills in the mail (unfortunately, for some reason, I still have to pay them… I haven’t quite figured out how to avoid that aspect yet!).
By Raz Godelnik •
July 29, 2008
This post was originallay posted on Eco-Libris blog on July 21st.
Our book this week on Monday’s green books will take you on a trail that we find one of the most interesting and significant ones in our life: the paper trail.
Our book for today is:
Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash - The True Cost of Paper
Author: Mandy Haggith
Mandy Haggith is a freelance writer, researcher and activist. She has spent the past decade campaigning for the world’s forests, including lobbying at the United Nations, working as a consultant for Greenpeace and WWF and writing articles for Pulp and Paper International and Resurgence magazine.
Publisher: Virgin Books
Published on: July 3, 2008
What it is about (from the publisher’s website): Paper charts the course of our lives, from the medical sheets in maternity wards to our death certificates. We write on it, package things in it, use it as currency and blow our noses on it. Yet our dependence on this seemingly ‘green’ product is damaging our planet and creating mountains of unnecessary waste. Join Mandy Haggith on a journey to the heart of the global paper industry, travelling from the pristine forests and managed plantations of Canada, Russia and Indonesia to the pulp mills and paper factories of China and Britain, and the end users in businesses, governments, schools and homes throughout the world.
