Sustainable Bates
EcoL ogic
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May 17, 2010
An estimated 3 million sheets of paper were printed at Ladd library in
the 2009/10 academic year (95,000 sheets per week on average). As an
estimate, approximately 30% of this is unclaimed and thrown out due to
careless printing.
In the library alone, Bates spends approximately $20,000 on paper each
year. Of this, roughly $6,000 ends up going directly into the recycling
bin. The printers also use large quantities of soy ink. Per year, the
library spends over $10,000 on ink. Approximately $3,000 of this cost is
also tossed away.
The bottom line: The library spends over $30,000 per year on ink and
paper and 30% of this expenditure, or approximately $9,000, is wasted.
Using paper means cutting trees (it takes roughly 250 trees a year to
accommodate printing at Ladd library). It also requires energy for
transportation and processing.
Save paper.
It may be debated whether reading on printed paper is more or less
environmentally harmful than using energy to power electrical devices
(paper vs. plastic?!), but eliminating paper waste is easy: it would save
roughly 75 trees each year.
A single piece of paper releases .04 pounds of CO2 (both in carbon
emitted during processing and carbon that could have been sequestered
if the trees had remained alive).
That means roughly 55 metric tons of CO2 are released over one year
from printing at Ladd. Of this, more than 16 tons of CO2 could be saved
if we eliminated paper waste at Ladd library.
So how do we make this easy in practice?
 You can reduce waste by printing less and thinking before printing.
 Cut back on the number of drafts you print and proofread work
thoroughly.
 Reduce the number of PDF class readings you print each week by
reading assignments online using lyceum.
 Print preview before printing to eliminate unnecessary pages.
Did you know? The library has recently installed a new printing system to save paper and streamline printing.
Rather than sending a print job, rushing to the printer and sorting through piles of unclaimed printouts, users will send their print
job, and it will be held at the printers until they walk to one of two touch screen panels located at the printers, swipe their Bates
ID, and select which print jobs they want to release for printing. Print jobs are held and available to be released from the Print
Release System for up to 24 hours, and then the print job is automatically deleted.
Assumptions from Lee Desiderio:
Paper used at Library
90,000 to 100,000 sheets per week at the library… so an average of 95,000 pages per week
of which 30 % gets wasted = 28,500 sheets
*This number was estimated based on extrapolating (doubling) actual data from fall 2009 to apply to an entire
academic year.
1776 students at Bates this year
How many sheets used per student?
95,000/1776= 53.5 sheets per student per week
30% of 53.5 is: 16.04 = sheets wasted by each student per week
53.5 x 31 weeks = 1,658.5 sheets per student per school year
30% are wasted per student per school year = 497.5 sheets
What is the cost of paper used at the library?
1 ream = 500 sheets
10 reams sell for $34
10 x 500= 5000 sheets
$34 per 5000 sheets
Cost per student
(1658.5/5000) x $34= $11.27 of paper used per student per year
of which (497.5/5000) x $34= $3.38 gets wasted per student per year
For the whole library
95,000 x 31 =2,945,000 sheets used by Ladd library per school year
of which 28,500 x 31= 883,500 sheets are wasted
So (2945000/5000) x $34 = $20,026 is the amount of money spent on paper by the library in a single
year on paper
Of which (883,500/5000) x 34 = $6,007 is the amount of money that goes to paper that is immediately
thrown out by students
What about ink?
An hp laserjet 9000 printer uses “228 ink cartridges”(soy based) [Lee Desiderio]
Bates goes through 3 cartridges a week. A low estimate of the price of each cartridge is $110 (estimated
looking at cartridge prices online)
$110 x 3= $330 in ink per week
Cost of ink for the library?
31 weeks x $330= $10,230 ink per year by the library
We know that 30 percent of the print jobs are wasted
10,230 x .3= $3,069 of wasted ink by the school per year
What about per student?
10,230/1776= $5.76 of ink used per student per year
3069/1776 = $1.73 wasted ink per student per year
Bottom Line for Students
Total amount of money spent per student on paper and ink per year
11.27 + 5.76 = $17.03
Of the $17.03, the total amount of money wasted on paper and ink per student per year is
3.38+1.73 = $5.11
Bottom Line for the School
Total amount of money spent on paper and ink by the college per year
10,230 + 20,026 = $30, 256
Of the $30,256, what gets wasted by the school on paper and ink per year is
6007 + 3069 = $9,076
Calculating the Loss of Trees
http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml
1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses .6 trees
5000 sheets = 1 carton or 10 reams
2,945,000 sheets used by the school per year/5000 sheets
=589 cartons of paper
589 cartons x .6 trees
=353.4 trees destroyed by the school per year if all the paper was unrecycled.
Bates uses Boise inc. Aspen Recycled Paper. The recycled paper content is 30% (Lee Desiderio)
30% of 354.4= 106.02 which is the number of trees that are “saved” due to using recycled content paper
354.4- 106.02=248.38 total trees destroyed for paper use by Ladd Library.
How does this affect carbon sequestration?
http://www.erasecarbonfootprint.com/treeoffset.html
Its difficult to determine what type of tree should be used to base our assumptions as different species
and different aged trees sequester different amounts of carbon. Let’s assume that a 25 year old pine is
the standard.
The average 25 year old pine sequesters 14.667 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
Assuming 248.38 trees are destroyed x 14.667= 3,642.906 pounds of CO2 that can no longer be
absorbed by the trees destroyed
In terms of carbon sequestration, how much CO2 is each piece of paper worth?
2945000 sheets of paper = 248.38 trees = 3642.906 pounds of CO2 (calculated above)
so 3642.906/2945000 sheets= .00123 pounds of CO2 that could have been sequestered per sheet of
paper if the tree was still alive
What about carbon dioxide used in the production process
http://www.stewartmarion.com/carbon-footprint/html/carbon-footprint-stuff.html#one-pound-printerpaper-produces-4-pounds-carbon-dioxide
 Each piece of printer paper weighs about 0.009 pounds. 1 pound paper / 0.009 pounds per sheet =
111.1 sheets of paper
U.S. EPA, 2006. Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases: A Life-Cycle Assessment of Emissions
and Sinks, EPA530-R-06-004
 1 pound printer paper * 0.00045 metric tons printer paper / pound printer paper * 4.36 metric tons
CO2 saved / 1 metric ton of printer paper source reduced * 2,200 pounds / metric ton = 4.36 pounds
of CO2 saved by using 1 less pound of paper at the source
So: 1 pound of paper produces 4.36 pounds of carbon dioxide during production according to the EPA
4.36 pounds/ 111.1 sheets = .03924 pounds of CO2 per sheet emitted per sheet during the production
process
We can add the amount of CO2 emitted during the production process with the amount of CO2 that
could have been stored by trees if they had been left uncut.
.03924+ .00123= .04 pounds of CO2 per sheet of paper.
2945000 x .04 =117,800 pounds of CO2 released per year from printing at the library
What happens if we cut back printing?
Students can help out by cutting back on the number of PDFs that get printed for class readings. If the
average student has 50 pages of reading per week for classes (very low estimate from Lee Desiderio)
and each student prints the PDF double sided, that means every student prints 25 pages per week. 25 x
31 = 775 pages per student per year. 775 x 1776 =1,376,400 sheets for PDF class readings for the entire
school in a year. Compare that to the 2,945,000 sheets that are printed by the school in a year and we
see that roughly 46% of the paper used is committed to class readings. While the new print release
system is useful, we could cut back the amount of paper we use by 46% if we simply read our class
readings on the computer as opposed to printing them out every time.
What is 1,376,400 or 46% in terms of money, trees, and lost carbon sequestration?
Money
$30, 256 spent by the school on paper and ink per year at the library (calculated above)
1,376,400 pages is 46% of the paper printed at the library (also calculated above).
46% of $30,256 = $13,917.76 which is the amount of money that could be saved if everyone read their
class readings online instead of printing them out.
Trees
one carton uses .6 trees. Have to convert sheets to cartons first.
(1,376,400/5000 sheets) x .6
=165.168 trees
accounting for 30% recycled paper content
165.168 x .3 = 49.5504
165.168- 49.5504=
115.6176 trees that could be saved if students read PDFs instead of printing them
Carbon
115.6176 trees x 14.667 pounds of CO2 per tree=1695.7633 pounds of CO2 that could have been
sequestered if students read PDFs
Facts and useful information
Assumptions and Observations from Lee Desiderio
The library has recently installed a new printing system where you have to verify your print jobs at a
series of monitors by the printer. The print release system has been installed to cut back the amount of
wasted paper and ink the college produces per year. After you print your desired item, you go to your
desired printer, scan your ID card, and then select the job you want to print. You can also choose to
delete the documents you don’t want. If you don’t delete the jobs, there is a 24 hour grace period
where the document will be retained. After 24 hours the document will be dropped from the print
queue automatically.
Information on paper and fossil fuels
http://thepaperplanet.blogspot.com/2009/03/whats-in-your-papers-carbon-footprint.html
First, every paper production process and life cycle uses fossil fuels. Transport of materials, purchased
energy from the grid, oil, coal and gas used at the mill to make energy are key examples. These
emissions are essentially irreversible even over the longest term. The use of chemicals and fossil fuels to
make paper, which are large, also have indirect emissions associated with them.
Second, making virgin paper uses large amounts of biomass. Trees may grow again, but this depletion of
the biomass in forests in the short and medium terms is also irreversible. Essentially we are taking
carbon sinks and storing the carbon in our products. This places us at a constant deficit. Consuming less
paper and products from trees leaves more forests intact to continue to grow and sequester carbon.
There are also impacts in the forest, in soils and forest debris that emit carbon when they are logged. No
tree planting program reverses that impact.
Third, much of the paper we use ends up in landfills where the carbon in the paper is converted to
methane by bacteria, a greenhouse gas that is more potent than CO2. Until we recycle all of our paper,
or capture the methane released from landfills to use as an energy source, this remains a large source of
climate-changing greenhouse gases
http://esa21.kennesaw.edu/activities/trees-carbon/trees-carbon.pdf
Carbon Sequestering in Trees Carbon Reservoirs In burning fossil fuels as an energy source, we are
taking stored carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere at a rate that is greater than it is being
taken out. This causes means that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, and
will continue to do so until the difference in these two rates disappears. One way to bring this about
would be to greatly curtail the rate at which burn fossil fuels. Many people do not like this idea, as it
would mean a great change in our lifestyle. Another proposed method would be to speed up the rate at
which carbon is removed from the atmosphere. One way of doing this would be to plant more trees.
During photosynthesis, trees convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar molecules and oxygen
through a series of oxidation and reduction reactions. The overall equation for the photosynthetic
process may be expressed as6 CO2 + 6 H2O + sunlight ---> C6H12O6 + 6 O2
Some of this sugar is stored, while most of it gets used by the tree for other purposes such as energy
and structure. For instance, a great deal of the sugar is linked together to form cellulose which provides
the structure for the tree.
If we look at this sugar from a mass standpoint, we see that a large fraction of it is due to the carbon.
The fact that carbon has an atomic mass of 12, hydrogen has an atomic mass of 1, and oxygen has an
atomic mass of 16 means that 72/180 = 40% of the mass of the sugar molecule comes from carbon.
Taking into account the other types of molecules that are found in a tree (proteins, lipids, etc.), we find
that about 45% of the dry mass (not including the water) of a tree comes from carbon. In other words, a
100 kilogram log of a tree that has been completely dried contains about 45 kilograms of stored carbon.
While each kilogram of dried tree is storing .45 kilograms of carbon, it is removing more than a kilogram
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is because each carbon dioxide molecule contains two
oxygen atoms. Using the data from above, this means that each carbon dioxide molecule has an atomic
mass of 12 + 2(16) = 44, of which only 12 are due to the carbon. Therefore, for each atom of carbon
stored in a tree, 44 atomic mass units of carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. This means
that each kilogram of dried tree corresponds to
(1 kg of dried tree) x (.45 kg of C/1 kg of dried tree) x (44 amu of CO2/12 AMU of C) = 1.65 kg of CO2
This large of an amount gives the idea of using trees to remove carbon from the atmosphere a lot of
validity. However, it should also be pointed out that this equation works in reverse. When a tree is
burned or allowed to decay completely, the carbon in the tree is put back into the atmosphere as
carbon dioxide. Worldwide, we are actually losing forest, and this relationship shows why we should be
concerned.
In this activity, we are going to estimate how much carbon is sequestered in an acre of forest land. In
order to do this, all that we need to know, given the information above, is how much dried wood is in an
acre of forest. To get this information, we will first need to know something about how organisms grow.
Image on front page
http://www.brodeur.com/openblog/wp-content/uploads/paper-pile-lg.jpg