Now that I’m back on track with finishing off The Paper Revolution, I actually went back in and revised my design for the print edition. To see more of the book, click here.

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part 4 – recycling

Today, paper makes up roughly 35% of our waste stream, but only 48% of the paper products we use is recovered for recycling.(1) That means over half the paper we use is filling up our landfills and rotting in our trash. What makes this even worse is the fact that paper is one of the easiest materials to recycle.

Of course using paper is pretty unavoidable sometimes. By making environmentally friendly paper choices and recycling the paper we use, we can be responsible paper consumers.

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part 3 – printing

The art and science of printing was born out of the desire to disseminate words and images, while reducing the labour involved in writing or drawing things by hand. In essence, it is mass production applied to human communication.

The birth of printing: Gutenberg’s Bible
The advent of movable type and printing represented the mechanization of an alphabet system whose traceable origins went back some 3,000 years. Credit for inventing movable type probably belongs to the Koreans, who as early as 1241 were printing with movable and reusable type blocks made from ceramic. In Europe, the invention of type is credited to German Johannes Gutenberg.(1)

Gutenberg’s contributions were his design and use of movable metal type with metalcasting techniques borrowed from jewellers, followed by the invention of a process for mass producing this type, the use of oil-based printing ink and the use of a wooden printing press similar to the wine presses of the period. Gutenberg’s real genius with the process was to standardize the concept into a complete and practical typesetting and printing system. Gutenberg’s breakthrough brought with it the facility to edit copy, to print a proof, correct it easily and then print the run.(2)

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part 2 – paper

So what exactly is paper and what is it made from? Just about everyone answers trees, but is that really the case?

A brief history. . .
Throughout the history of paper, the practice of papermaking has evolved in response to economic growth, historic influences, available raw materials and social issues.

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part 1 – introduction

This report is going to take a look at paper, printing, recycling, how and why we use paper, whether the paperless office is a myth and what we can do to limit our paper usage. My hope is that by shedding some light on this difficult subject we might find a better way to achieve our goals.

So a few things to get out of the way first. . .

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