Be it in the form of Post-It notes, paper bags or printed A4 pages, paper is still very much in use.

In 2017, almost 8 million tonnes of paper were manufactured, of which half was used as packaging material and one quarter in the graphical industry.

Paper is often treated with a lot of prejudice. It is often regarded as the primary cause of deforestation. However, this is untrue, the main reason for deforestation is agricultural or as grazing ground for livestock. Actually, the paper industry is one of the principal agents of reforestation.

Another argument we often hear is that an email pollutes less than a paper mail. This is also not correct. Paper is eco-friendly while emails consume quite a lot of energy. An email is thought of as immaterial. However, emails are handled and kept on servers, which consume considerable amounts of energy. If we look further and consider the building of servers, this not only consumes energy but also uses a lot of rare earth materials, which is currently considered an ecological disaster.

After taking the above facts into consideration, we must conclude that paper is actually the least polluting means of communication.

Paper is also an excellent example of circular economy. The finished product is also the basis for the start of the reuse in the form of recycled paper.