In order to protect the environment, it is absolutely vital for us to implement sustainable practices at work. A big part of that is sustainable shredding. When you dispose of paper waste at your business, there are two things to keep in mind at all times: protecting confidential information and protecting the planet. Shredding with a partner like Pulp accomplishes both of these objectives. Everyone wants to be eco-friendly, but it’s easy to forget how damaging the smallest things can be. Failing to recycle properly can have direct and knock-on effects that are disastrous for the environment. Read on to find out how sustainable shredding can make your business greener.
The Impact of Paper Production
The most obvious way in which shredding helps the environment is that it eliminates the need to produce more paper. There are many stages to the paper production process and each one impacts the environment in a different way.
Deforestation
As we all know, paper is made from trees. They are the single most important ingredient. This means that, the more paper we produce, the more trees we cut down. It’s crucial that we protect as many trees as possible. They maintain ecosystems, keep the air we breathe clean, and are natural carbon offsetters.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing paper has a lot of negative effects for the environment. For example, paper production consumes an enormous amount of water. It is not sustainable to use these essential natural resources on an industrial scale, especially when we could simply recycle more.
Transport
In our globalized world, we have put in place sophisticated system of transportation and shipping. Doing things this way comes with a lot of benefits, but transporting products and raw materials between factories, to wholesalers and retailers and across the world creates a lot of pollution.
Landfill
Unfortunately, a lot of paper isn’t recycled and ends up as landfill. Landfills aren’t just ugly symbols of waste and excess, they are actively harmful. They produce greenhouse gasses and contaminate water supplies. Shockingly, paper accounts for up to 26% of waste in landfills. This is despite the fact that paper can be recycled up to 7 times.
The Benefits of Eco-Friendly Shredding Practices
Recycling is a great way to prevent emissions and environmental destruction caused by the above factors. It is important to note the distinction between shredding and recycling: Shredding adds in the crucial extra step for businesses of destroying confidential information before sending the paper off to be reused.
Save the Trees
Shredding and recycling are two of the most important tools at our disposal in terms of saving trees. Did you know that Pulp recycles 100% of our shredded paper and that we have saved more than 400,000 trees since we got started?
Provide Material for New Products
Recycled paper can be used for all manner of things. Some of it gets reused as regular paper, other times it might end up as toilet paper or cardboard. Some companies can even use it to make clothes. Not only does shredding mitigate the effects of the paper manufacturing process, it makes other industries more sustainable too.
Reduce Landfill
Properly segregating your paper waste, and ensuring it ends up recycled, means that it won’t be thrown into landfill. It is important to reduce the proportion of landfill that is paper as well as the overall size.
Wrapping Up…
We’ve all got to start taking our environmental responsibilities more seriously, and paper waste remains a big part of that. Shredding and recycling your office’s paper allows you to take a two-pronged approach to this by reducing your office’s contribution to landfill and increasing the supply of recyclable material that can be used to make other products. When you shred with Pulp, this process becomes easier, more efficient and more secure.
Give us a call today to find out more!
