Help bring an end to the biggest waste of paper in the universe
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Photographers’ cards.
What a waste of 300 gsm paper, gallons of ink and millions of kWh of electricity.
That’s not to say photographers are all bad, but like everything else in the world, 90% of them are much of a muchness.
So 90% of those cards hang around on desks for a while, then get binned without a second thought.
If that’s going to happen, couldn’t there be a less wasteful way of going about it?
Well, there is: First-Stop.org aims to put all those photographers (an illustrators) online.
They’ve saved over 2000kg of paper so far.
And they might save even more if you spread the word.
I hate to break this to you, Ben, but it uses more energy (and the resulting strain on the environment) to run the servers and view stuff like that online than it does to produce and print on the paper.
Not to mention the fact that most paper comes from family owned and managed forests. So when you stop using paper, and they can’t make money on the forest, they generally sell the land to a developer, who clear cuts it to build homes, apartments, buildings, factories, etc., thereby adding to warming the planet and depleting the watershed. not everything is as simple as it seems. I thought you should know, because I am solidly behind your water bottle efforts.
Really?
Rob and Ben: Did you know that 2 searches on Google emits the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as boiling a kettle – and with over 200 MILLION searches initiated every day, Google (whose company motto is “don’t be evil”) are a major cause for concern.
In fact the IT industry as a whole is terrible for the environment – it’s at least as bad as the airline industry (in that it too is responsible for 2% of the world’s CO2 emissions).
So, with all that in mind, we should all make less banner ads. Especially if they’re for Google.
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/836r22)
Bollocks. All right everyone – back to photographers’ cards.
When did you turn into Sting?
When I ran out of things to write about. Quick, send me an ad I can slag off.
Merda!
What if we make our pictures out of berries?
Or air?
While you’re at it Ben/Sting, could you do something to stop the incessant uninvited spam emails that flood in from photographers?
Oh christ no, we can’t take the air from the atmosphere. Imagine the uproar.
S! S!, change your email address then become a copywriter rather than a CD. I never get photographer spam.
In fact, I was in my office last week and a photographer came in and meekly offered his card.
‘I’m a copywriter,’ I replied.
He left with his tail between his legs.
what about sending and delivery of the cards? and then its not only cards is it. little books or whole parcels from getty or corbis and others.
not sure this does outweigh the energy needed for hosting and viewing/searching but the whole-ish energy balance is something to consider.
i reckon the search takes a fair amount of time here though. didnt look like the most efficient site hierarchy to me (not logged in). an a-z directory might help.
Ben, don’t post this, but here is a brochure I researched and wrote that will give you the basic facts:
Don’t Think Before You Print
Think Before You Don’t Print
Panel 1:
We’ve all seen it. That single sentence at the bottom of an email: “Think before you print.” Well, naturally. Most of us are sensitive about the environment. So we think, gosh, if everybody stopped printing out emails and such, we could save a lot of trees. And trees are good. They help in the fight against climate change. They provide oxygen and water and clean up the air. In fact, if we stopped printing all together, we’d save the world, right? Wrong.
Reality Check
The reality is, you use more energy and create more greenhouse gases reading an email on your computer screen than you would if you printed it and read it. And every page you print helps sustain an industry that is providing the cleanest, most renewable resource in the world
These days, everyone wants you to go paperless. Every bank and insurance statement you get in the mail reminds you that you could get it online. Your utility and phone companies want you to pay your bills online. The argument they use is that you can save time, money (a stamp) and energy by doing all your business online. And they imply that it is the environmentally responsible thing to do. Fact is, all they are really doing is trying to cut their mailing costs and shift their printing costs. And landowners, print and paper companies, their workers and families, and the environment are the ones who will pay.
Let’s Bust Some Myths
So let’s look at the facts. Let’s address some preconceived notions. Let’s take it step-by-step to gain an understanding of what’s really going on in our world today:
Myth #1:
The printing and paper industry are decimating our forests.
• Industries that use paper products are planting 600 million trees a year (yes, that’s 600 MILLION), far more than they harvest. In fact, three trees are planted for every one harvested in the U.S.
• Annual tree growth in our nation’s commercial forests exceeds harvests and losses due to insects and disease by 47%.
• During each of the last five years, 400,000 acres were added to cultivation, much of it managed for sustainability. Worldwide, 12 million more acres are forested today than 20 years ago.
• Modern, managed forests absorb more CO2 than older growth forests that lose their ability to sequester carbon.
• According to climate experts, responsible management of forests offers one of the best and least expensive ways to combat global warming.
• Only 11% of the wood harvested from the world’s forests is used by the paper industry. (Show pie chart: Energy production- 53%; lumber- 28%; Paper- 11%; Other- 8%)
Myth #2:
Paper is wasteful and is clogging our landfills.
• Nearly 60% of all paper in the U.S. is recycled, more than any other material. Compare that to only 20% of electronic devices and 12% of plastic water bottles.
• Paper is biodegradable and decomposes in a landfill without releasing methane, one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases.
Myth #3
Using less paper will save more trees.
• Trees are a renewable resource. But there have to be incentives for landowners to plant more trees. By depressing the market for paper and wood products, we encourage landowners to harvest their forestland for quick income and then sell the land instead of growing more trees.
• For the first time in 100 years, our forests are shrinking or disappearing.
• Nearly 60% of forests are privately owned, with one in five acres owned by someone at least 75 years old. As these owners age, land is being divided, sold and developed for uses other than growing trees.
• 55 million acres of forests are owned by people who plan to sell or transfer some or all of their land in the next five years.
• The U.S. Forest Service estimates that by 2050 we will lose 23 million acres of forestland—an area about the size of Maine—to parking lots and highways. From 1982 to 2003, we lost 4,000 acres a day to development.
• By maintaining a demand for paper and wood products, we give forest owners an incentive to keep land as forest as opposed to converting it to other uses that provide no watersheds, carbon benefits, or homes for wildlife.
Myth #4
Electronic communications are clean and environmentally friendly
• The average data center serving electronic devices consumes the same amount of energy as 25,000 households.
• Server farms that power computers have become the fastest users of fossil fuel in the world. The amount of energy they use is doubling every year.
• 500 kilowatts of electricity-–the amount needed to power one computer continuously for five months—or enough to produce the average person’s paper use for an entire year.
• People who read the daily news on paper use 20% less CO2 than those who read news on the Web for only one-half hour.
• 33 billion kilowatt hours of electricity is wasted each year on spam, with the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using two billion gallons of gasoline.
• E-waste is the fastest growing municipal waste concern in the world. It is estimated that we dispose of 130,000 computers in the U.S. everyday, and 100 million cell phones annually.
• Electronic devices are not biodegradable and are much more complex and expensive to recycle. They contain heavy metals and materials such as lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, and PVC that are toxic to humans and wildlife with effects that range from brain damage and kidney disease to mutations and cancer.
Easy on the Eyes and the Environment
The electronic and digital age is relatively new. As we learn more and more about the effects of electronic communications, we’re discovering that transferring information digitally is potentially much more environmentally destructive than printing it. And that doesn’t even address how it affects us personally.
Reading from a printed page causes less eye fatigue. It’s 20% to 30% faster than reading from a screen. Proofreading from a screen has shown to be less accurate. Paper trumps screen viewing on understanding, comprehension, spatial orientation, and due to its combination of visual and tactile learning, fosters the ability to write.
Think Clearly. Act Responsibly.
In the end, it isn’t about print and paper versus digital technology. As with any controversy between old and new technologies, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It’s important to arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make informed decisions. And use that information to improve our world. Sometimes it makes sense to print. Other times, it makes sense not to. To know the difference is responsible and wise.
There are many things you can do to help the environment and conserve energy. Here are some suggestions:
• Junk mail- We all complain about so-called “junk mail.” Often it is a legitimate effort by a business to interest you in their products or services. Usually you are targeted because you fit the demographic profile of their likely customer. But sometimes, you may get mail that has no possible application to you or your life. In those cases, contact the sender and ask to be removed from their list. Most businesses are happy to reduce the cost of wasted mailings.
• Magazines & Catalogs- Most people enjoy receiving magazines and catalogs. If you don’t, please request to be removed from the company’s list. And if you don’t save them, recycle them.
• Newspapers- Recycle, recycle, recycle.
• Computers- Turn off when not in use. Don’t read long documents from the screen if you can print them out. And by all means, recycle all electronic devices when you are through with them.
Ben & Sell Sell. I hear you about emails and cards but any bright ideas as to how we should promote ourselves to you instead?
Hmmm…
You probably know this, but many creatives are quite lazy and conservative. Lots of them just flick through award books. Nadav Kander used to take an amazing shot, use it as a mailer and get it into D&AD or AFAP or whatever. It will give your photographers’ work credibility beyond a mailout.
Otherwise: tricky. Do those DPSs in Archive work?
Print ads get printed on paper. 99% of them are much of a muchness. About 99% of them get binned without a second thought. There’s a hell of a lot more paper used to create print ads than photographers use in their mail shots.
Reducing the amount of paper we use is a great plan. So long as it’s someone else who reduces their consumption.
Here’s an idea.
Why don’t we stop putting ads in magazines and put them all online where people can go and view them if they want to. It will save loads of energy and upto to 3000000000kg in paper.
Hello Ben, Rob H., Guy, Sell! Sell!, Cathy, et al,
1) A thrown out artist’s promo will always be be a greater waste than someone visiting First-Stop with the intent of checking out work by photographers and illustrators.
2) I’m guessing about 90% of paper promos and 95% of spam promos from photographers and illustrators get discarded without being seen. The more creatives who use First-Stop, the sooner the promos and the spam will become obsolete.
3) That “boiling kettle” factoid from Guy has been discredited, Google it.
4) Cathy, can I suggest checking out this little site we have called First-Stop.org?
speaking of photographs, check this out
http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery
And I suppose this is for a small fee like all the other sites no one looks at. Dum ass
No fee, Solomoto. We will ask nothing of you, in this life.