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4204 13th Street Court West, Palmetto, Florida 34221 • Ph. 941-729-3370 • FAX 941-729-4955 • 1-800-362-2657 • e-mail sales@marlowmarine.com |
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A Paper's Roots - Each piece of paper has its roots someplace in a forest. In North America, almost half of the trees cut down go into making paper. Most of these trees come from tree plantations—large forested areas that have been planted where wild forests once grew. Others are small young trees from wild forests. Plantations and special tree farms are an efficient way to grow trees, but they aren't as diverse or wild as native forests. One problem is that they often use a lot of pesticides and fertilizers which can have adverse effects on the environment. Many people believe, however, that these tree farms are important so that we can keep the older, wilder forests we still have intact and protect the nation's diversity of plants and animals. They believe that if we reduce our overall demand on trees, we can get all the timber we need from existing plantations and tree farms without making new ones or cutting in wild areas. Once cut, trees are hauled to the paper mill. There they're sent through a chipper, which chops them into little pieces. After that, the wood chips are dumped into a digester, where they're boiled in water and chemicals. That softens the wood, turning it into slushy, sloppy pulp, which is bleached with more chemicals. Next, a mixture of 1 percent pulp and 99 percent water is sprayed onto a fast-moving mesh screen, flattened, and dried. The paper-making process uses an exorbitant amount of water- it takes more water to make a ton of "virgin" paper (paper made from trees rather than recycled paper) than a ton of any other product made by U.S. industries. Making pulp bright white requires the use of a chemical called chlorine. When chlorine combines with wood pulp, a highly poisonous chemical called dioxin is formed. Dioxin gets into the environment when water from a paper mill is dumped into streams, rivers, and lakes. It also gets into the environment when bleached paper is burned. The result is a buildup of dioxin in our soil and water. Dioxin can move up through the food chain, affecting wildlife and humans. It's been associated with lung cancer, birth defects, and other serious health problems. Now the paper reaches the store where you, the consumer, buy it. How do you use the paper? Do you write or print out a few words on each sheet of paper and then throw it away? Or do you reuse the back side of the paper to make it last longer, and then recycle it? Your choice has a big impact on the planet. If you throw your paper in the trash, you use up landfill space. What's more, decomposing paper emits methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. Methane has more than 21 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide, and many scientists believe it's a very serious contributor to global warming. More than 80 percent of discarded paper currently ends up in landfills. Let's face it, we all need
paper. And using trees to make paper and other wood products isn't necessarily a
bad thing. But taking just three simple steps can dramatically reduce the
environmental impacts of our paper consumption habit. Reuse your paper. Try to maximize your use of the paper you use. Did you print out a draft of your presentation? Consider turning it over and writing on the other side. Only final projects need to be on new paper, right? And maybe those can be double-sided, too. Recycle. To make recycled paper, paper manufacturers need old paper. If you recycle, you'll be keeping them supplied and keeping paper out of the landfill.
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