To print or not to print

Hundreds of people use the meeting house every week. We want to keep everyone informed about the building development project, what is currently going on and what will be happening over the coming months. One of the ways we're doing this is via Update, a simple news sheet that will keep everyone up to speed every few months. Update 1 has been in circulation since January, and on the table in the meeting house foyer. Comments so far have been very positive, but yesterday there were two critical remarks. About the paper.

The first was that it would be more environmentally-friendly to spread the word online, and save the paper. Point taken.

The other was that the paper quality could have been better, as it was a bit flimsy and off-white. Well, the thinking behind it was that if we were going to produce something printed with a short life, it would be best to go for recycled paper. And this is not just any recycled paper, this is low-grade, unbeached recycled paper made with the waste paper nobody else loves. To most people asked, the quality seems good enough for our purposes.

A print run of Update is 500 sheets = one ream of paper. And here are the stats for the paper we're using:

79 litres of water, 16 kWh electricity, 7.5 kg wood pulp less. On just one ream of paper.
Food for thought.