[Web4lib] Paperless society

[Steve Cramer SMCRAMER]

Yes, data from IBIS, S&P (quoting the American Forest & Paper 
Association), and Datamonitor confirm that the US & global pulp and paper 
mill industries (NAICS 32111, 32212) are experiencing narrowing growth, 
but not a decline. 

In its forecast, IBIS writes "[Decreasing capacity] will be the result of 
higher import competition in packaging papers, and flat demand for 
newsprint and writing and publications paper, due to the increasing 
popularity of electronic media. Lower capacity will further align supply 
with demand, allowing manufacturers to implement price increases. Thus, 
industry revenue will rise primarily as a result of higher prices, rather 
than increased volumes." 

But such nuances can be inconvenient when a writer has already formed a 
point of view....

Sorry for the interruption in the phone book debate!

--Steve
___________________________________________________
Steve Cramer
Librarian for Accounting, Apparel, Business, & Economics
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
smcramer at uncg.edu, 336-256-0346, AIM: stevebizlib



"K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com> 
Sent by: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
02/11/2008 10:32 AM

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Re: [Web4lib] Paperless society






I always hate to break up a good discussion with the facts. However,
paper generation has been rising for over four decades. In the United
States, 1995-2005 showed a slowing trend, but not a reversal. This is in
keeping with the Times' statement that worldwide, paper usage has
"plateaued." 

See:

http://www.epa.gov/garbage/pubs/mswchar05.pdf p. 38 and passim

Note that books are a very small percentage of the total paper waste --
on a par with grocery bags (p. 37, table 4). Corrugated paper (as in
boxes) is *huge* -- five times that of office paper production. That
doesn't mean that we shouldn't aggressively tackle source reduction in
all areas -- just wanted to put into perspective that every book
published could go digital-only and we'd still have a massive
environmental problem caused by our appetite for paper. As the Times
(again, accurately) reported, "The paperless office, which some experts
had said would be the norm by the 1990s, has so far failed to
materialize." 

I'm the world's lamest reference librarian, so perhaps someone can find
more current statistics, but a quick search for "paper consumption
site:epa.gov" hoovered this up immediately.

K.G. Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com 
(& former director, EPA Region 2 Library)




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