LaNique Bass works as a student assistant in the RWC Library, where she says that she is required to add about 1.5 packs of paper to the library’s printer every half hour. That’s a lot of paper.She blames the high use of paper on the fact that the computers in the Library are not being monitored for amount of printing being done and the belief that students print out things they do not really need.
“A lot of times, there is a big stack of papers left over at the end of the day that people printed out but never even picked up,” Bass says.
The fashionable new idea of “Going Green” has taken over our society; it’s being talked about and applied in every context possible, but evidence like this massive paper waste is showing that students, most of whom are of the generation that will be around to deal with the effects of so much waste, may only be “talking green” instead of actually “going green.”
All students, especially those in college, use a very large amount of paper taking notes and printing out documents. Think about all the paper you use on a daily basis for school. For example, if one college student takes ten pages of notes and prints ten documents each week for each class, 20 pieces of paper are used in a week, 200 in a quarter, and 600 in a full year.
But if a student is full-time and is enrolled in not just one, but five courses each quarter, then after one year she has used at least 3,000 pieces of paper.
If you think that still does not seem like a lot, try looking at the bigger picture. Together, students from every UC campus will go through 111,216,000 pieces of paper. Even worse, there are 15.9 million students currently enrolled in U.S. colleges. Now, that’s a lot of paper to use up, and that’s a lot that gets thrown into the trash as soon as the course is over. Remember, that’s only college students–just a portion of the entire population, most of whom, I assume, are also using a lot of paper.
“Going Green” is a great idea, in concept, but buying the latest shoes that are made from all recycled goods or buying a cute purse composed entirely of used seat belts is not really going to cut it. So, while being eco-friendly and using “green” products is a step in the right direction, it’s a very, very tiny step, a step so light that it wouldn’t even leave a footprint in snow.
What we do to make our lives a little easier can be the most damaging. Stop and think about the trash you are leaving behind and realize that you could be doing so much more to be less wasteful. Our society has adopted the concept of “going green” in a way that is skewed; if we were really “going green,” we would be changing our lifestyles and everyday habits and we would sacrifice things we are accustomed to doing in order to prevent damage to the environment.
Instead, people are going and purchasing new products but not changing their lifestyles. We have been spoiled with things that make life easier on us; things we know to be the norms of society are doing the most damage, but because of the frequency and commonality of them, we seem to be blind to damage they are causing.
The use and disposal of tons and tons of paper is accepted because it’s so cheap and plentiful, but it’s damaging because its creating huge amounts of waste (picture a gigantic garbage can full of balled up mess-ups and start-overs) and the plentiful supply is killing trees, trees that biologically are doing more for the Earth than any piece of paper ever will.
So the next time you get a new assignment or document posted on Blackboard, really think about what you’re doing before you click print. Is the information so priceless that you can’t bear to try to copy it down on something you already have used? Or is it too much for your brain to handle to remember that you need to bring your book and homework to your next class? And is it really necessary to print off a PowerPoint presentation for every chapter of your book or are you just doing it because it’s available? Is it really going to help your outcome in the course by having 500 slides that you will probably never even look at?
Don’t print or use another fresh, blank piece of paper until you have really thought about it. A piece of paper may not cost much to students and society, but it comes at a great cost to our landfills and our trees. What cost will you choose to pay?
Now, I am in no way an environmentalist, but recently I have become burdened by my own conscience. Now that I know what damage is being done and what needs to happen to fix the problems we have created, I have realized that I do not want to be one of the people who is just “talking green.” I want to really “go green.”
I know that if I follow the three R’s, reduce, re-use, and recycle, I will be doing my part. To me, this means a complete change in the way I live my life each day. Using less, creating less waste (including recyclables), using safe products, purchasing recycled items, re-using whatever I can, and finding alternatives that allow me to do what I need to do, but in a better way.
My biggest waste product has to be paper. I am a note person. I write everything down, no matter what it is. I often have pages and pages of lists, notes, and reminders about anything and everything that I ever thought up, and on top of that, I was using tons of paper for school-related things. In addition to note-taking, I am also somewhat print-crazy and have printed out so many things that, looking back, I never even needed or looked at.
I also need to have all my documents and information, etc. relating to school all together in one place. So my weird characteristics were creating way too much paper waste, and I found alternatives.
Now, I print almost nothing out for school, and only use paper when I’m taking notes during class. My solution was to go digital and find some software to fill the void in my life that used to be filled with paper.
If you stop using paper and printing all your documents out, a lot of paper is saved, and if more and more people do this, the amount of paper waste would drop tremendously.
Microsoft OneNote is a great alternative. It allows you to literally have a virtual notebook, but without having to print anything or carry it around. OneNote notebooks are easy to organize and add information to. You can add as many pages, tabs, sections, subsections, and information as you want; you can also click anywhere to type and it does not have annoying formatting like Word documents. Also, it allows you to exercise your need to push “print”; you can select your printer to be OneNote and the document will “print” to your notebook. There are tons of other digital solutions, all of which save paper and can be carried around with you on a flash drive.
If you are interested in “going digital” instead of using paper, look for programs that meet your needs and are free. Apple’s website includes a downloads section, where you can find tons of random-but-amazing applications to meet any need you might have; Downloads.com is another similar site. Mind Notebook and Together are two great paper-saving programs to check out, too.
If you are not a paper-waster, find something else you can change that creates a lot of waste. Anything you can do to create less waste is a step closer to “being green,” but it is important to look at things from the perspective of “what can I do better” and look at the things in your daily lifestyle that you might not realize are harmful. Remember, you don’t want to just “talk green”; you want to really “go green,” by reducing, reusing, and recycling in any way that you can.