One of the most significant, and perhaps least understood,
impacts of the paper industry are climate change. Every phase of paper’s lifecycle contributes to global warming, from harvesting trees to production of pulp and paper to eventual disposal.

It is estimated that 42% of the industrial wood harvest is
used to make paper—a sobering fact given that forests store
roughly 50 percent of all terrestrial carbon, making them
one of our most important safeguards against climate
change. Old-growth and mature, second-growth natural
forests store much larger amounts of carbon than newly
planted stands and once logged, require decades to recover
the original amount of carbon they contained.
Whether the tree grew in a mature forest or industrial tree
plantation, climate change impacts multiply after it is harvested.

The pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest emitter of
greenhouse gases among manufacturing industries, and contributes 9 percent of total manufacturing carbon dioxide emissions.

The biggest greenhouse gas releases in pulp and paper
manufacturing come from the energy production needed to
power the pulp and paper mill.

The climate change effects of paper carry all the way
through to disposal. If paper is land filled rather than recycled, it decomposes and produces methane, a greenhouse
gas with 23 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.
More than one-third of municipal solid waste is paper,
and municipal landfills account for 34 percent of human related methane emissions to the atmosphere, making landfills the single largest source of such emissions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified the decomposition of paper as among the most significant sources of landfill methane.
The climate benefits of reducing paper consumption are
significant. If, for example, the United States cut its office paper use by roughly 10 percent, or 540,000 tons, greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 1.6 million tons. This is the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road for a year.

By embracing a Common Vision—Minimizing virgin pulp paper consumption, maximizing tree free content,sourcing fiber responsibly and employing cleaner production
practices—paper manufacturers, such as Ecopaper.com / Costa Rica Natural can dramatically reduce the climate change impacts of the paper industry. Please use our Banana Papers and tree-tree papers when you can.