We probably come into contact with paper and paper products more often than any other material throughout our lives. Humans have been using paper since ancient times, developing it over the years to adapt to different cultures, materials, and uses. Today, paper makes up 35% of our waste stream, but only 48% of the paper products we use is recovered for recycling. That means over half the paper we use is filling up our landfills and rotting in our trash. This is a very sad fact when you consider that paper is one of the easiest materials to recycle and reuse.

As our use of paper increases, so does our need to think carefully about our paper choices and seek out the most sustainable options. Luckily, the recycled paper industry is coming of age, and there are many alternatives to virgin paper (i.e. paper made from trees). As a graphic designer, I use paper to communicate my clients' messages (when I can't convince them to do so over the web, that is) through brochures, invitations, posters, business cards, and so on. Choosing the right paper for the project is a big part of the design process, and I make sure that no trees are cut down for my projects by making use of the many tree-free and recycled paper options out there.

With so many sustainable paper choices out there, all with varying degrees of environmental impact, it can be difficult to choose what type to use. Thankfully, there are many resources available online to make this choice easier. One of my favorites is renourish. This site is a complete guide for designers who want to become more sustainable and includes information on which types of paper are most environmentally-friendly and what to look for when choosing a sustainable paper. There are many factors to consider, such as recycled content, how the paper was processed or bleached, and what materials were used to make it. According to the renourish paper guide:

The best solution for paper selection is:

• 100% Post-Consumer Waste (PCW)
• Processed Chlorine Free (PCF)
• Uncoated
• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified
• Made by renewable energy sources (wind, geothermal, solar, etc.)
• Treeless paper like bamboo, hemp and kenaf (if readily available locally)

Celery Design Collaborative has a very comprehensive list of sustainable papers available from a variety of companies, including paper from each category listed above. Conservatree's choosing paper guide begins with a very good recommendation:

The first step in choosing paper is to evaluate how to reduce paper use so that you're only using what's truly needed.

Reducing paper use is probably the most important step we can take to save trees and resources and prevent waste. In the office, this means printing on both sides of each page, reusing all the paper we can, and simply not printing as much stuff. For instance, I send all my invoices as PDFs attached to an e-mail. The paperless office may not be a reality yet, but we can certainly move towards it by using digital documents over paper ones.

Of course, using paper is pretty unavoidable sometimes. By making sustainable paper choices and reusing and recycling the paper we use, we can be responsible paper consumers.

There are many paper companies that offer eco-friendly papers, whether they be recycled, processed chlorine free, made from renewable fibers other than trees, or synthetic. Neenah Paper offers several sustainable options, including Neenah Green Papers and the Environment line of papers. They even have an Environmental Savings Calculator so you can see how many resources you would save by choosing a greener paper. Mohawk Fine Papers also offers recycled choices and many papers produced using wind power. They also have an Environmental Calculator on their web site. SMART Papers is another large paper company with high environmental standards. Yupo and Polyart provide synthetic tree-free papers.

While the big paper companies often dedicate only part of their entire product line to sustainable papers, there are smaller companies who produce only sustainable paper. EcoPaper produces papers and stationery that utilize not only recycled paper fibers, but natural tree-free fibers from bananas, coffee, lemons, and even cigars! Green Field Paper Company produces paper that is made with a mix of recycled fibers and renewables like hemp, which is stronger and can be recycled more times than regular paper. They also make paper out of recycled junk mail and coffee, along with some beautiful cards called Grow-A-Note that have seeds embedded in the paper fibers so that the cards can simply be planted after use. Vision Paper produces paper from kenaf, a quick growing plant with a high fiber yield.

From regular office paper to fancy cardstock, there are countless options for the environmentally-conscious paper user. Sustainable papers are competitive with virgin paper in price, brightness, texture, and variety. I hope you'll consider all the environmental effects of your paper choice for your next printed project. With all these green paper choices, I often wonder why virgin paper still exists at all!