The Large Mixing Bowl

In my last post, I shared some interesting information about Marcal Recycled Paper Products; and now, I have more! Last week I was thrilled to be invited to take a private tour of Marcal Recycyled Paper Product's manufacturing plant in New Jersey; it was such a neat experience.

Since I published my own print magazine for two years, I realize what it's like to be in a paper plant, but this was something different. First off, there were NO chemical smells. That was a pleasant, but no surprise because Marcal doesn't bleach or add harmful chemicals to their bath or kitchen paper products. Another amazing thing was seeing stacks and stacks of recycled paper obtained by Marcal from various sources (saving it from landfills); some as basic as YOUR very own blue recycle bin from your office. Yep, that's right, they take homeless, unwanted paper and re-use it. What a novel idea. NO CLEAR cutting or use of trees by these guys, no way! Just pure recycled pre and post consumer paper waste.

You should have seen the huge mixing bowl (about the size of my kitchen) where they'd pour in the tons of old newspaper, magazines, office waste paper, etc. and add water to make a "soup" of paper. Then after several filtering processes, and steps that, as a layperson I'm not going to attempt to explain, out comes HUGE reams of beautiful (no guilt) paper, spun out and sent on to the manufacturing line. I've never seen such a large roll of paper towel or toilet paper in my life. Kind of reminds me what King Kong or Godzilla might use!

As I watched Marcal's new product, Small Steps by Marcal slide down the line with it's beautiful yellow packaging, I actually got chills. Chills because, as a mother of three, I KNOW how important our planet is and if companies like Marcal are going to take the steps to preserve it, well--then they have MY vote of confidence. Everything they do is sustainable, from NOT using ANY trees in their paper production to maintaining sustainable business practices.

It's estimated that each American uses approximately 700 pounds of paper each year. Wouldn't it be great if we could lessen that number? Consider my family of five, we're consuming approximately 3,500 pounds a year. You do the math. Doesn't it make sense to consume the "used" paper we already have, rather than putting it in landfills? Just food for thought, or paper for your...

Going Paperless

DO YOUR PART!!

Did you know that a 2007 report from Javelin Strategy & Research and sponsored by CheckFree, now part of Fiserv Inc., found that if every American household viewed and paid bills online, it would:

• Save 2.3 million tons of wood, or 16.5 million trees
• Reduce fuel consumption by 26 million BTUs, enough energy to provide residential power to the city of San Francisco, Calif., for an entire year
• Reduce toxic air pollutants by 3.9 billion pounds of CO2 equivalents (greenhouse gases), akin to having 355,015 fewer cars on the road
• Reduce toxic wastewater by 13 billion gallons, enough to fill 19,846 swimming pools
• Lower by 1.6 billion pounds the solid waste generated, equal to 56,000 fully loaded garbage trucks
• Remove 8.5 million particulates and 12.6 million nitrogen oxides from the air, on par with getting 763,000 buses and 48,000 18-wheelers off the streets
• Save landfill space and curb the amount of toxic chemicals—including methane gas—released into the atmosphere as paper decomposes. Methane gas has 21 times the heat-trapping power of carbon monoxide and is believed to be a major contributor to global warming
  

By using electronic transactions, you can save trees, and minimize transportation costs for transporting bills, statements and payments. Following are some ideas on how to cut down on your paper bills in the coming year.

1. Make a commitment to pay your bills online. This not only saves the paper used in checks and envelopes, and the transportation resources to physically move them from place to place - it also saves you 41 cents per bill in postage.
2. Take it one step further and ask your billing companies to send your bill to be viewed and paid to your financial institution’s or billing company’s web site. Reduce clutter by turning off paper bills you no longer need to receive by mail once you get into the habit of viewing and paying online.
3. And while you’re at it, ask your financial institution to send your statements electronically. Not only will you save paper, you will save time that you would have otherwise spent filing and storing. If you need a hard copy, you can print what you need.
4. Ask investment and mutual fund companies that send you annual reports and prospectuses to notify you when the reports are available online, instead of sending paper copies in the mail. You will save reams of paper each year.
5. Choose not to receive a paper receipt at the ATM machine. You will save paper, and with online banking, you don’t need the receipts. You can see your transactions daily and will have better control of your finances.
Hug a tree, not paper :)
Beth