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Environmental Studies Department |
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Campus Paper Waste Reduction ProjectBy Heather Crawford and Kelly Forney
Current Paper Use: In conversations with Jim Jeffers, Head of Purchasing and Central Stores, we attempted to determine how much paper is being used by the campus. Jeffers oversees ordering paper for all of the academic departments, the library, Computing Information Technology (CIT) and the administrative offices. All paper used on campus, with the exception of those jobs handled by document services and the copy rooms managed by Document Services, is ordered through the purchasing office. At the current time, Purchasing does not have the staff necessary to track paper use on campus beyond the amount ordered; it is distributed to departments upon request but this distribution is not recorded by Central Stores. According to Jeffers, the biggest paper uses are Admissions, Alumni and Development, the academic departments and the library. There are 5,000 sheets per carton of paper and 40 cartons per pallet. Macalester College orders approximately one pallet of paper per month. The library alone orders about 15 cartons from Central Stores every two weeks when it is busy. According to statistics from the Macalester Recycling Office (MacRO), the amount of paper recycled on campus (newspaper, mixed paper and books) for the year June 1997 to June 1998 totaled 117,095 pounds. This amount increased to 151,870 pounds in the year ending June 1999. It is unclear whether this trend is the result of a greater percentage of used paper being recycled or if paper use has simply increased. Current Paper Purchased: Our current paper contract is for Springhill Recycled Relay paper from International Paper. This paper is 30% total recovered fibers (scraps from the production of other paper at the mill) and 30% post-consumer fiber. Our local vendor is Unisource and Macalester College pays $5.37 per thousand sheets. Jim Jeffers has contacted Unisource to get additional information on our paper, including whether or not chlorine is used in the production process and whether or not the other 40% of the fibers is harvested from old-growth forests. We are under contract with Springhill for another 18 months (as of April 2000). At the end of this contract, bids will be accepted for a new contract and this would be the first opportunity to change the type of paper purchased by the college. We wanted to find an alternative type of paper to propose to Jeffers, so we looked at what papers other schools were using that had already researched the recycled paper issue. The name that came up most often was Eureka 100% Recycled PCF (Produced Chlorine-Free) paper. Additional information about this paper is available at: http://www.greenculture.com/pr/paper_e.html The information was given to Jeffers who said that he would look into any 100% recycled papers that we found for him. The one stipulation is that they must be of the right quality for use in laser printers. Document Services: In the past, other groups investigating the issue of paper use were unable to get information from Document Services on the number of copies and amount of paper that the campus orders through them. They are a private contractor and it is unclear how much we will be able to work with them to change paper use on campus. In addition to jobs that are ordered and processed through their office in the Lampert Building, they also manage the copy rooms in the academic buildings. Here departments can make their own copies and have their services charged to their individual accounts. Paper is distributed to these rooms on a weekly basis, but the use is not tracked. The copy rooms are left unlocked and anyone can walk in and take reams for personal use or office use. In addition, the copiers only keep track of the number of copies made, and do not distinguish between single and double-sided copies, therefore it is not possible to know how much paper is being used. See "Future Action" for additional information. Problems: In order to come up with solutions to the problem of overuse of paper on campus, we first needed to identify the problems associated with it.
Raising Awareness: To raise awareness of the issue on campus, we did several things to educate people on over-consumption of paper and ways that they could change their consumption habits.
Future Action: Possible avenues for future work include, but are not limited to: Document Services:
Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities (ACTC): Work with other campuses, gathering information on their paper use, their approaches to reducing paper consumption, etc. The St. Thomas student paper printed an article in spring 2000 about the issue of paper use on their campus, in which they consider charging students for printing, etc. This may be a point of collaboration between campuses. CIT:
Purchasing: When printers and photocopiers are bought in the future, they should already have the duplex system built into the machine. MacRO: Although there are many restrictions on the placing of recycling bins around campus, e.g. space limits, fire marshal codes and aesthetic issues, there is still room to improve the recycling program at Macalester. There is a new labeling project in process which aims to have every bin on campus, including regular trash bins, uniformly labeled. Also, Dupre residence hall has just been furnished with new recycling bins. There are plans to re-bin other campus buildings after remodeling takes place. Education: Further education on ways to cut down on paper use and why to do so is still needed for students and faculty alike. For example a print job should never be sent more than once unless the person has checked with the lab consultant to make sure that it did not already go through. Hopefully this information, as well as information on duplex printing and photocopying, will be part of next year’s new student library orientation. A survey of students’ paper use habits was recently completed by Heather Crawford, Joel Creswell and MG Eisenhart, the results of which will offer further insight into the issue.
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