Explore the ‘Secret Life of Paper’
Think about paper much? If not, you should … as becomes clear as you view “The Secret Life of Paper,” a video put together by INFORM, a New York-based non-profit that produces environmental reports designed to “shape corporate practice, public policy and public opinion.”
Part of a video series that will highlight the “secret life” and environmental impact of everyday products, the 5 1/2-minute-long paper video is more informative than its length might suggest. There are hints of “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats” in the images of an ordinary U.S. family and the piles of paper it consumes over the course of two weeks. (The stacks shrink considerably for families in the U.K. and even moreso for families in Mexico.) There are stats, too, presented in “An Inconvenient Truth” style:
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“In the U.S. manufacturing sector, the pulp and paper industry is the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases,” one snippet reads;
“If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper with 100% recycled toilet paper,” another states, “we could save 330,000 trees, we could save 106,000,000 gallons of wastewater, we could reduce 25,000,000 pounds of greenhouse gases.”
More than just a cautionary video, though, “The Secret Life of Paper” suggests ways in which we can all cut our paper consumption and reduce our “paper footprint.” And after watching the video, you’ll understand why that’s important.
Check out “The Secret Life of Paper” here (there’s also a video on “The Secret Life of Cell Phones”), or learn more about INFORM by visiting its Website.
