Reciclaje

Eduardo

Recycle paper, is it worth it?

People should recycle paper? The answer is no. Recycled paper not only damages printers but also has a negative effect on the environment. Therecycling of paper does not stop or prevent deforestation since the paper is not the main reason for deforestation and further more in this process involves chemicals that pollute more than if demand ofpaper increases exponentially.

Some people say that recycling paper saves energy and saves trees, but this is not true. The energy cost is curiously as or higher than in the creation offirst-generation paper. Recycle paper, requires more infrastructure to collect, more transportation, more separation of materials, more shredded and more processed than the first generation paper. Chemicaltreatments are also higher and more dangerous. In the first generation paper, chemical bleaching is used to obtain white paper. In the case of recycled paper, the process is much more aggressivebecause inks, Tonner, varnishes, laminating, etc. must be removed. Making one ton of recycled paper, in reality is much more polluting, especially if you want to produce white recycled paper of goodquality. The mistake is in thinking about saving a tree without thinking of the whole process that this entails.

Another mistake made regarding paper is that people think that, saving paper assistin the conservation of trees. This is really a wrong approach. First, the main sources of deforestation are the construction industry, the cattle raising and cultivation. The wood is used in largequantities in construction, formwork, scaffolding, etc… cattle raising requires huge tracts of land to feed animals so the trees are felled to allow the grass to grow, and crops are created at the expenseof forests because as the forest is fertile, it is believed that the harvest should grow very well there.

What then is the influence of the paper on deforestation? Well contrary to what...