What's going on?
I
often see people drying their hands with three or four sheets of paper towels
although one sheet or two are enough to dry their hands. You need to assess
what is really going on at UT even though it might be hard for you to face
up.
1.
A fate of used paper towels
Very disappointing is what UT deals with used papers towels. Used paper towels
are not recycled but end up in a landfill because, according to Solid Waste
& Recycle in UT, these papers are wet and cause mildew which will contaminate
all other recyclable papers.
2.
Amount of consumption
Perhaps you argue that brown paper towels are already recycled products. That
is true and it is supposed to be a good thing to use recycled products. However
I still insist that usage of paper towels in bathrooms should be banned. The
reason is overwhelming consumption of paper towels. UT consumes too many so
it seems to be meaningless to choose even recycled products. Given an example
that gives you an idea of how many papers are wasted:
There are approximately 130 buildings on campus and I calculate at minimum
assuming that each building has one bathroom for man and woman with two dispensers.
Based on life-span cost comparison assumptions by Border Waste Wise:
Pounds per Case of Paper Towels- about 25
Number of Cases Required per Year - about 10
(4 dispensers in each building × 130 buildings on campus) × (25 lb per case × 10 cases required per year) = 130,000 lb required per year
3.
Amount of trees logged (Conversion from papers to trees)
At least 130,000 lb of recycled paper towels is consumed each year on campus.
(Actually much more is used because most buildings have several bathrooms
with on average two dispensers.) Then how many trees are logged for making
that amount of paper towels?
Calculating based on Conservatree's website that says 1 ton of paper requires
more than17 trees, 130,000 lb (= 5.85t) of paper needs approximately 97 fully
grown trees.
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