Where do these ideas come from? Are they based on fact or fiction? The most common misconceptions surrounding printed communication are to do with paper. Far from being the medium that destroys forests, print is one of the most environmentally sustainable ways to communicate.

Making paper destroys forests. 

Actually the opposite is true. It is estimated that there are 25% more trees in the developed world today than in 1901. European forests have grown by over 30% since 1950. Deforestation is generally occurring in the tropics and the main causes are either conversion to crop land and pasture or domestic fuel requirements – not paper production.

Paper is bad for the environment.

One of the many unique things about paper is that its main raw material is renewable and recyclable. Furthermore, the use of wood and wood products, like paper from sustainable forestry practices, increases the absorption and “locking up” of CO2 emissions. Forests in Australia store an estimated 10.5 billion tonnes of carbon (excluding soil carbon) – equivalent to 38.5 billion tonnes of CO2 removed from the atmosphere. The Eucalypt is capable of sequestering carbon at a rate of 10 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year, and has a positive net carbon balance even when used for pulp and paper production.

Paper consumes a lot of energy to make.

Surprisingly it consumes less than you would expect. On average it takes 500 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity to produce 200kg of paper, the average amount of paper each of us consume each year. This is equivalent to burning a 60w light bulb continuously for 1 year; or powering one computer continuously for five months; or the energy consumed by a typical household leaving its electronic equipment on stand-by for a year.

Paper has a high carbon footprint. It is not as high as you might think.

Producing 200kg of paper equates approximately to 72kgs of CO2 emissions versus operating a plasma television 5 hours a day for six days per week equals 450kgs of CO2 emissions. In this multimedia world it’s often mistakenly supposed that e-media is more sustainable. One email with a 400K attachment, sent to 20 people is equivalent to burning a 100-watt light bulb for 30 minutes. Research has shown that unsolicited email messages (SPAM) – which numbered 62 trillion last year – generates greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a car around the planet 1.6 million times. More than 80 percent of the world’s email traffic is deemed spam, and 33 billion kilowatt hours of power is wasted sending, sorting and storing phoney or unsolicited messages. A recent Swedish study showed that reading a newspaper can consume 20% less carbon than viewing the news online. Consideration of these points caused one member of the print industry to recently change the common email sign-off to “think before you forward this email”!

Harvesting new trees to make paper is bad. 

Without new fibres from new trees, the paper cycle cannot be maintained. Recycled fibres degrade with use, so new fibres are always needed. Yes it makes good environmental and economic sense to reuse the paper fibres as many times as possible but to keep this cycle going does require new fibres to be introduced into the system. As mentioned earlier, new growth forests provide a valuable ‘sink’ for the world’s CO2 emissions.

Print and paper is a wasteful product.

No it isn’t. Australia ranks No. 1 in the world for newsprint recycling and the overall paper and cardboard recovery and recycling rate is estimated at 64%. Paper and print is one of the few materials which is able to be completely recycled. In contrast, the amount of electronic products discarded globally has sky-rocketed recently with 20-50 million tones generated annually. Paper has been around for almost 2,000 years, and during this time it has undoubtedly established itself as the most effective and versatile means of communication. Even in today’s digital age, with the vast range of alternative media to choose from, print communication can still be argued as the most effective and sustainable means available.

The core focus of ecoDesign ecoPrint has always been environmental considerations. The company started in 1992, with a simple focus on recycled or alternate fibre paper stocks.  Today our design  considers all aspects of the finished product, our presses are alcohol-free, we use vegetable oil based inks and every by-product that can be recycled is. We are  independently audited each year to maintain our ISO 14001, ISO 9001 quality assurance certificates and Chain of Custody (QMI-COC-001113) certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). We are continually striving to add to our credentials as an ethical green provider of graphic design, offset and digital print.

ecoDesign ecoPrint is a medium sized company who strives for  excellence in customer serviceand quality. We are proud of  our achievements to date, and look forward to  establishing long lasting  mutually beneficial relationships with our clients.

Below is a list of initiatives we have undertaken to minimise our carbon footprint and in many quarters this would be seen as being “Carbon Neutral”. However until there is an  international standard definition for the term “Carbon Neutral” we have been reluctant to make any claims in this area.

• We use 100% Greenpower through AGL
• All our vehicles emissions are offset through the GreenFleet program
• Our VOC’s are virtually zero given our use of vegetable oil based inks and running the presses alcohol free.

Where possible, we have chosen alternatives to eliminate our carbon output and only as a last resort utilise offset programs – such as tree planting – tooffset carbon emissions.

We welcome any enquiries or questions you may have and will do our utmost to provide you with a service that joins us in the common pursuit of sustainability.

Please contact us with all enquiries
Ph: 02 9597 7733
Fax: 02 9597 7477
info@ecodesign-ecoprint.com
ecoDesign ecoPrint
15 Willis Street
Wolli Creek NSW 2205
www.ecodesign-ecoprint.com