Print or not to print that is the question

Perhaps as you consider getting that flyer printed, a nagging thought suddenly comes into your head. How does this affect the environment and the affect it will have on our fragile world? Questions like, where will the waste go, what about the rain forest and will it be better to use social media?

Our minds can see clearly the devastation by large corporations as they clear beautiful jungles and forests in distant lands. We can hear the noise of the industrial machinery as they produce pulp and eventually paper, which will eventually make its way to the printers shelves. It sends a shudder down the spine doesn’t it.

We forget that the raw materials used for the manufacture of paper, comes from forests where trees are felled, but is followed up by replanting. New manufacturing and a change of processes combined with recycling has “greened” paper manufacturing somewhat.

But have we considered the cost of the internet, large banks of servers chattering away need electricity. Electrical power is needed to drive all those servers, but they need to be cooled as well, so the electricity usage increases. Closer to home the fact is we overcharge the many devices we own, simply by leaving them on charging overnight. So the electronic age has done its bit in the usage of our natural resources.

So as we consider how we live and use our world’s resources, we need to consider our lifestyles and practices. By carefully considering both sides of all the available technologies, we have to decide when it is practical to print and when to use digital media. Sometimes it is even useful to use a balance of both. So to steal and modify a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Print or not to print that is the question”