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Did you know...Making a ton of paper products from recycled paper saves up to 17 trees and uses 50% less water. (Energy Information Administration website, 2015)
When developing bid documents for paperboard packaging (e.g. corrugated cardboard, cartons, boxboard etc), request the following:
Other things to consider
To minimize greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste production, the vendor should be encouraged to develop sustainable delivery strategies:
The Manitoba Climate and Green Plan Act supports reducing environmental and social impacts, as well as enhancing operations through sustainable procurement of goods and services.
In addition to direct impacts on the forest from timber harvesting, producing paper products at a mill uses large amounts of energy and water. The paper industry uses over 80,000 litres of fresh water and over 35 gigajoules of energy to produce a ton of paper product. That’s enough water for about 1,000 loads of laundry and about enough energy to fill-up 70 propane cylinders for your barbeque.
Forests are signficant carbon sinks. Like all plants, they remove carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen which we need to breath. Therefore, deforestation and harvesting activties can have a large impact on the ability of forests to store carbon. Improper forestry management practices result in an increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.
During the manufacturing process, harmful emissions are released into the atmosphere and into our water bodies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that making paper from recycled materials results in 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution. This means that every ton of recycled paper keeps almost 60 pounds of pollutants out of the atmosphere that would have been produced if the paper had been manufactured from virgin resources.
Luckily, through the efforts of the purchaser, a business can significantly reduce the environmental impacts on the forest and at the paper mill.
Decisions purchasers often make that significantly help the environment are:
If printing is required on the packaging, consider the use of water-based printing processes to reduce the use of solvents and therefore reduce the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Last Updated: November 2019
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