Kids Fight Global Warming, Deforestation with Disappearing Paper Margins
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 06.12.08
If you’re looking for kids making a positive difference to put a dent in our paper usage look no further than the 4th Graders from Attrium Grade School in Watertown, Massachusetts who took on a green paper project and made it their own. Asking local governments to join them in the fight against global warming by changing their margins to reduce paper consumption and help stop deforestation as well.
Global Warming and Paper Usage
Amazingly, the kids calculated that we can save 6,156,000 trees per year if everyone in the U.S. just reduced their margins while printing. Assuming you change from ½ to ¼ inch margins on all sides, you’ll save 6.667% of a single sheet of paper. And that means that for every fifteen pages of changed margins you’ll have put over one page back into the forest.
The effort started slow at first, but now they’ve got a number of local government offices jumping on the bandwagon, changing margins in an effort to stem the tide of trees heading for the landfills and recycle bins of America.
Of course, their efforts also prove you’re never too young to make a difference in the green movement. As student Asha Densmore put it, “A lot of other people who are older than us do these things, but it feels good to have this much impact when we are young."
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Just remember that narrower columns of text are easier to read! (Newspapers have narrow columns, so do novels, and most wide books seem to have a large empty margin with the extra space used only for illustrations.)
(Also, you only save paper if you document is actually 15 pages long!)
But it's good to see the awareness :-)
Good point, Matt. The solution is to reduce margins and do two columns, flipping the page from portrait to landscape. Two narrow columns, thin margins.
I did this with my law school exam notes and it always cuts down the page count. (Small margin between columns, too.)
Aw, that's adorable! Little children are stepping up to meet the challenges that face the planet. Rather inspiring, actually. If only more people would get involved.. the standard sheet-of-paper size could be altered.
Just think about how many government reports there are that go well over 15 pages, this was a great (and simple) idea that can do a whole lot of good.
This will probably bother Dunder Mifflin though.
That's fantastic.
But before we spend too much time on this one - remember to cut down on meat, especially beef, or go veggie altogether. The vast majority of the world's deforestation is for grazing or feedcropping. Forestry is but a very small proportion.
That's fantastic.
But before we spend too much time on this one - remember to cut down on meat, especially beef, or go veggie altogether. The vast majority of the world's deforestation is for grazing or feedcropping. Forestry is but a very small proportion.