Hidden Cost of
Paper Towel
Paper towels are certainly convenient, but their environmental impact is significant. Traditional
papermaking processes require several gallons of
water to produce just a single pound of paper.
A look in to paper manufacturing
The consumption of paper towel continues, as Americans spend 4.3 billion dollars on paper towel annually with the United Kingdom leading behind. But looking closer into the production of paper towel reveals its harms to the environment. To begin the process, trees are the source for the paper manufacturing industry. A staggering 35% of harvested trees being a leading driver of deforestation.
- Paper production stands as the 5th largest consumer of energy worldwide, it concentrates 4% of the world's total energy supply.
Paper production entails a lot of water usage and carbon emissions. Paper mills discharge various pollutants into waterways, such as chemicals used during the pulp. The traditonal papermaking process uses twenty thousand gallons of water to make one ton of 2,000 rolls of paper towels.
Waste & paper production
The paper industry continues to put profit first before the environment and serve consumers on the convenience of their products when its important to note that they cannot be recycled and contribute to global warming.
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In the United States, it’s estimated that we produce more than 3,000 tons of paper towel waste every day.
- 110 million trees are cut down each year for paper towel.
- More than 6.5 million tons of paper towels are sent to landfill each year, the decay of this products produce methane gas which is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
