Today, more than ever, people receive their news and information from the Internet. The five pound Sunday newspaper has become a thing of the past and I for one think this is a good thing. Yes, the Web has resulted in some news outlets closing, but that is more of a revenue model discussion for another time and another Blog. This shift in consumption is not merely reserved for the daily new s as recently it was reported that Amazon now sells more E-books than traditional soft or hard cover books. It is correct to assume that we are always on the go and this is a product of convenience, but this trend is also a very positive step in how we view our world and how we are changing our patterns.
To put this in perspective lets take the Sunday edition of the New York Times for an example.
o The circulation is 1,400,000
o The average weight of the paper is 4.2 pounds
o Each week nearly 6,000,000 pounds of paper are needed to produce this single paper
o Each year nearly 312,000,000 pounds of paper are used – just for the Sunday paper
Three hundred million pounds is a large number, but small in comparison when there are thousands of newspapers that are printed each and every day. Researchers say that if every daily newspaper was recycled we could save 41,000 trees…each day…every day.
This discussion is not just about trees and paper as other resources are necessary to create what we print on. One ton of recycled paper saves more than 24,000 gallons of water and 3,700 pounds of lumber.
I for one can deal with the barrage of ads on the Web site for my local paper knowing that when my son grows up he will be able to see the great forests of the country and the beauty that they create.