What’s Greener – Pixels or Paper?
By Gail Nickel-Kailing on July 24th, 2009
Just a couple of weeks ago, we added Pixels vs. Paper: Are pixels greener than paper? to the Going Green Resources page, along with several other white papers from International Paper.
IP contends that pixels and paper both have a place in our communications future. By linking paper with the efficiency of electronics, we can streamline our communications and help maintain the best environmental balance possible.
One of WhatTheyThink’s regular readers – and very articulate commentator – took the concept a bit further. In response to a piece in The Wall Street Journal claiming that “e-textbooks are environmentally friendly,” Mr. D. Eadward Tree, author of Dead Tree Edition, offers a color-coded “tale of the tape” (as they say in boxing circles) comparing “Dead Dinosaur Editions” with “Dead Tree Editions” on key attributes, with quotations from the IP brochure.
Read his “smackdown” here, and enjoy! We may be changing the name of that booklet to “Pixels vs. Paper: Pixels are not greener than paper.”
6 Responses to “What’s Greener – Pixels or Paper?”
By Kristina Holdorf on Jul 24, 2009 | Reply
Finally some sense. MOST Paper companies are not the bad guys anymore. How about we go after TV manufactures for awhile and leave paper and print alone.
By Pat Berger on Jul 26, 2009 | Reply
Cellulose base communications sequester carbon. We can decide when and where and how we want to release the carbon.
With present technology, computer electrical usage of any kind is a 1 time deal that never can be saved or reused
This link is a good read to go along with E whatever books and other electronic reading devices and anything that uses electrical power.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16115.full.pdf
Everything we do has consequences. Having a little control of when, how, where and the severity of the consequences is what we call being ecological.©
We should be thanking the wood,pulp and paper industry for doing such a good job at sequestering carbon and planting more trees to sequester more.
The following is a quote from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/jun03/0612bigtrees/tabid/13494/Default.aspx
“The ODNR Division of Forestry is charge with ensuring healthy forests and good forestry products in the state. The state’s Big Trees can be examples of what it takes to develop healthy trees over a long period of time. One hundred years of good forest management has increased the amount of tree cover across Ohio from only 12 percent in 1900 to more than 33 percent today.”
By mattf on Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
One of the biggest concerns I see with this post and the ensuing bashing on both sides is that this still compares apples to oranges:
1) Both the paper industry and the comparable “data centers” create different things.
2) Both are good and bad in regards to the environment in their own way.
3) The Pixel age is younger and not as organized as the paper industry.
4) People’s perception of whats more prevalent in terms of environmental focus is a huge drive.
When we see paper in the trash, we see a “tree” being thrown away into a dump to stay there for thousands of years. That representation is a lot more visual, which is why paper has gotten so much heat. The larger population is also more familiar with that.
“Data centers” do not get that heat at times because the circulation of media attention to this pressing problem is not shown as much. If we saw this everyday:
http://www.2point6billion.com/2008/04/22/managing-asias-e-waste-673.html
Things would change. However, that drive hasn’t started yet. Certain large computer manufactures do take your computer back to recycle if you get another one, but there isn’t as much of a recycling program for e-waste as is with paper.
Paper has had a significant head start, pixels will follow, it will just take time. Same as Tesla will take time to develop a car that normal Americans can drive at the price that is desirable.
The one major point I do agree with the International Paper piece is that our society needs to create a more sustainable supply chain in every way and not just paper. Paper has a great head start, the rest of the world just needs to catch up.
By Lithoman on Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
Trees are a crop. Take away the demand for trees and trees will be replaced with another crop.
By David on Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
I think this pretty much says it all…
“Lifespan: I read a 150-year-old book the other day and have 75-year-old copies of National Geographic, but my 15-year-old WordPerfect for DOS files are either unreadable or FUBAR. How many of today’s laptops, e-book readers, and iPhones will still be in use five years from now?”
By Pat Berger on Jul 28, 2009 | Reply
Observation July 3 to July 12.
My family and I did a cross country vacation from Ohio to Indiana to Kentucky to Tennessee to Arkansas to Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico to Arizona to Nevada to California to Utah to Colorado to Kansas to Missouri to Illinois back to Indiana back to Ohio.
This wasn’t a very green vacation while it sure was an enlighting observation of some green and mostly greenless or green not at all.
We were in many major cities and traveled down many side streets to get a more realistic view an impression of the cities.
There were a few indications of solar panels and wind mills. Most of all I got the perception that the general population doesn’t give a crap about green or are completely oblivious to it.
When traveling and stopping at the visitors centers looking for clues as to what is available locally you find that you really don’t care how the information is presented be it a brochure or map or LCD screens or Iphone hookup or just chit chat with the locals green or not in these situations green is nice if you can get it but if it isn’t available so what. You still require the info and how you obtain it and keep it for the duration of the local stay is irrelevant at the time.
For green to work everybody must be involved everyday and everywhere.