Paper: a good, environmentally conscious student
Often wrongly accused, the paper industry is in fact one of the best in the world when it comes to ecology. Suprised? We'll explain.
Paper can be recycled an average of 5 times.
When paper is recycled, 70% becomes paper again (newspapers, notebooks, etc.), 20% becomes packaging cardboard, and 10% is transformed into hygiene paper or insulation products.
That is good news, but is paper actually being recycled?
In France, the vast majority is actually recycled. Paper is the most important waste item processed in sorting centres: in 2020, 60.5% of discarded paper was sorted and recycled. In terms of savings, this is equivalent to filling 7,600 Olympic swimming pools! Obviously, we can always do better, but we should be happy with victories, and this is one of them.🙂
But then, is dematerialisation meaningless?
Yes and no, let's say that we have to moderate the benefits of the virtual and put things in the proper perspective.
According to ADEME, one e-mail generates 10 g of CO2 and one e-mail with an attachment generates between 19 and 50 g of CO2 (the equivalent of driving 500 m by car). And here, we are not even talking about the pollution linked to storage in servers at the other end of the planet, nor that linked to spam.
Printing a sheet of paper generates about 2g of CO2. If this sheet of paper becomes mail, its carbon footprint will of course increase. But its production and use offer more transparency and traceability of its ecological impact.
What about the consequences for the forest?
They are rather virtuous! Requiring responsible and sustainable management of resources, forest ecolabels guarantee the maintenance and development of the forest. And it's effective! In France, the forest area has been growing for several years and now covers 31% of the country (compared to 10% in 1908).