Summers were hotter this year, weren’t they? Well, believe it or not but it’s partly because of the amount of paper that we use. Our communication systems haven’t progressed in accordance to the leap that the technology has taken. Despite the advent of electronic mail and signatures, companies still rely on the good old paper for relaying information. Although nice for rendering an old world charm, paper can destroy our environment’s chance of a future. In this article, we expatiate on the environmental cost of paper printing.

Paper is economically cheap. A few dollars can get an organization a month-long supply of it. The emphasis here is on the environmental cost of paper printing and not on the economical one. Paper itself is made from trees and trees as we know are the primary sources of oxygen in our world. Paper, once printed on loses future use value. Think about the amount of paper that we are piling to earth’s load each day. To get rid of the piles of paper, we can burn them but that would release Carbon Dioxide, the most heinous of contributing gas of the phenomenon of Global Warming. The wisest option would be to follow the three R strategy (reduce, reuse, recycle) and reduce our paper consumption, reuse already used paper and finally recycle reused paper.

Now that we understand the aftermath of paper printing on our environment, it is about time to think of alternatives. Adobe reader’s PDF files have been around for quite some time now. However, they are merely seen as archives, parts of which can be printed for reading. Secondly, computer tablets like Apple’s iPad are mobile alternatives to printed paper. EBooks are a good alternative to printed books. Printed paper wins a major chunk its affection from its ease of manipulation. We can bookmark, highlight and underline on paper easily whereas editing in electronic data still remains a little cumbersome. Innovations which allow easy editing on electronic forms can serve as an impetus to shift towards a paperless world.

Complete elimination of printed paper seems impossible, at least for now. Meanwhile, we can adopt measures to increase printing efficiency. Softwares that install virtual green printers on your computer to suggest efficient printing options can be used in offices. Certain typefaces utilize less ink than the others. The business sector’s beloved Adobe is planning to release tools for sustainable design that let you cut down paper and ink consumption.

Paper’s exit from our civilization has been over-due for several decades now. As humans progress, so should their communication systems and printed paper seems the most archaic of them all.