Does paper grow on trees?

Students often express concern about the use of paper, but these same students often have wasteful consumer habits. To cite just one example: buying chewing gum wrapped in non-recyclable foil-and-plastic packaging.

There’s an environmental cost to all that we do. Just breathing produces greenhouse gases! And I’m glad that students think about (some) of these costs.

But as well as costs, students should also consider the benefits—and there are many benefits to compiling a physical portfolio of one’s work. It’s much easier to flip through paper documents, to compare multiple paper documents, and to annotate paper documents. And it takes no additional electricity to read these documents over and over again.

One day, the resolution, flexibility, and efficiency of electronic display devices may approach that of paper, but in the present, the benefit of paper documentation to students’ education outweighs the environmental cost of paper production.

Of course, paper does grow on trees, and we grow a lot of trees right here in Canada! In fact, the Canadian Encyclopedia tells us that “pulp and paper production in the mid- to late 1980s has been valued at some $14 billion annually and has accounted for about 3% of the Gross Domestic Product. Exports of around $11 billion have comprised about 9% of total Canadian exports. The industry is the largest of Canada’s manufacturing industries, with about 85 000 workers in mills and offices, some $2.8 billion paid in wages and salaries, and some $6 billion in value added by manufacture. Furthermore the industry makes a net contribution to Canada’s balance of payments of some $8 billion, larger than that of any other Canadian industry.” [retrieved 2010-11-16]

Young minds, towering trees, environmental responsibility—all of these grow in Canada!