It's OK to print that email, according to the Wall Street Journal

posted Wednesday, April 5, 2011

Source: Leavell, Chuck, and Carlton Owen. "Save a Forest: Print Your Emails." The Wall Street Journal. 31 March 2011.

"Now, understand that we don't advocate wanton waste of paper or any other material, but avoiding the print option does absolutely nothing to save the planet or forests. More forests are dying of insect infestation and disease or being paved over across this country right now than could be converted to an email print-out in a thousand years."

This is an excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal article that sheds some light on the "Print an Email vs. Don't Print an Email" debate. In it, authors Chuck Leavell and Carlton Owen remind us that it's ok to print email. Paper is biodegradable and renewable. Not only that but there are more trees in America now than there were 100 years ago! Isn't that interesting?

Of course at Service Printers we do not encourage wasteful printing; not everything needs to be on paper. We do realize, however, that printing on paper will not destroy the environment. In fact, according to the US Department of Energy, the amount of energy used to fuel paperless communications is rising by 24% annually—that energy doesn't come from nowhere. What's more, McAffee, in The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam Report, says that every year the volume of SPAM email that is sent requires an amount of energy that releases just as much greenhouse gas as two billion gallons of gasoline!

Trees are doing great. Go ahead and print that email if it helps you be more efficient, or saves your eyes. You no longer have to feel guilty about it!

Source

Leavell, Chuck, and Carlton Owen. "Save a Forest: Print Your Emails." The Wall Street Journal. 31 March 2011.

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