SAVE A TREE, KILL A WHALE
Trees are a precious resource and
do more than make our planet look good.
What do trees do?
- Clean up carbon dioxide and create oxygen
- Collect and filter our fresh water, moderating floods and droughts
- Keep soil from eroding into waterways, killing fish and marine life
- Provide potential cures for diseases
What can we do to save trees?
71% of today's paper supply is coming from trees, not recycling bins. 1 ton of office paper we consume equals to 19 trees according to Environment Canada.
In our daily life, for example; "the average person goes through about 100 rolls of toilet paper a year, which is equivalent to 5 km of toilet paper, according to Greenpeace. If each household in Canada switched just 1 roll of the virgin bleached stuff with 1 roll of the recycled kind, we'd save almost 48,000 trees and 4,500 kilos of air and water pollution! Just one!!" – Adria Vasil
Another little step we can take to save trees is to use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified or Rainforest Alliance certified paper whenever possible.
This is not enough though. Why?
Even if we all recycled our paper, we need to keep in mind that recycling process itself leaves quite a bit of carbon footprint and releases toxic materials into our planet; for example, paper to be recycled is shipped to a remote country where labour is cheap and then sorted out and processed in a plant where toxic material is released back into our water supply killing many marine species before it is shipped back to our country to be processed further for recycling.
So, what's the best we can do?
We need to keep recycling first of all. However, keep in mind that recycling does not justify over-consumption. Don't forget this phrase, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
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