What Can We Do for Trees?

　by Joakim Kaminsky and Maria Poll

Have you ever noticed how many papers we use? We are using papers every day - to study, to remember something, to write a letter. Look at the things around you- newspapers, notebooks, even tissue, it's all made from paper. 390 million tons of paper are made in one year and this is about using 250kg of paper per person. And of course we need trees to make paper. That means many trees were cut down by humans to make paper. It is difficult to estimate how many trees we need for one paper because it depends on how tall the tree was and also depends on what sizes and type of paper. Many people agree that we are cutting too many trees so, people decided to make paper from old papers! This is the recycling of paper. But is it really good for the environment?  Some people think so, but some people do not. The most easiest thing is to reduce the amount of paper. But paper is becoming a imperative thing in our daily life so it’s hard to reduce the amount of paper. So,my question is, is it better to use recycled paper, or is it better to use new paper and plant new trees?

People who believe recycling paper is the best solution, are claiming that if we use recycled paper, we don't need to cut down as many trees, and as a result we are saving the environment. If we use one ton of recycled paper, we save about 17 trees. That's a lot because we are using a million tons of paper in one year. However there are limits to using recycled paper. We can’t recycle the same paper more than 15 times, so we still have to cut down trees, but they are saying it is better than not recycling.


If many believe that recycling is a solution then why do some people think recycling paper is not good for the environment? And saying, recycling paper is making global warming much worse. Most of the people who are claiming this are scientists that researching about the effect of carbon dioxide to the environment.They are claiming recycled paper creates two times (new paper 42%, recycled paper 83%) of carbon dioxide than normal paper. This is effecting the environment and changing the temperature of Earth which means destroying the environment. If the reason of using recycled paper is to save environment, the fact of carbon dioxide shows recycled paper is not accomplishing the aim. So they are saying it is better to make paper from trees, but plant a new tree to keep the amount of trees the same. How ever if we plant a new tree, it takes more than 30 years to grow to adult. So it takes a long time to equal the amount of trees we cut and for the result, it's not keeping the amount of tree on Earth the same


It is better to make new paper and plant a tree, even though trees need a long time to grow. The advantage of this way is that we can get byproduct that can allow us to change the way that how we are getting the energy now. The biggest reason causing the global climate warming or some kind of environment problem is humans increased too much amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And that is caused by producing electrics and burning substance by oil.  I think that is important than only focusing on paper because we can connect it to other things to help environment. Like by using black liquor it cause less carbon dioxide than burning oil. So it bring about an enlargement of possibility to improve our lifestyle. But What I think is we cannot continue this forever. If trees take long time to grow and if we can't keep the amount of trees same even if we plant trees, that means we still have to figure out the other ways of making papers. The first time when people made papers, they used straws and those kind of grasses. But tree was best suited to make paper so people started to use trees. But from the history we can know trees are not the only way to make paper. We have much better technology so maybe we can make good papers from straw that was impossible in older days. I think using many different kinds of solution together will make the best way of helping environment.

Many people thought about the environment and try to get a best solution and argued many times and showed evidences to prove their opinion. But still we are struggling with the solution. But the thing is we are thinking about the environment. And trying to have a solution. Thinking and arguing is worth fought for. What do you think is the best?