Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash - The True Cost of Paper

by Mandy Haggith

From the medical sheets in maternity wards to our death certificates, paper charts the course of our lives. Paradoxically, it spreads ideas and learning as well as thousands of tons of junk mail, yet our dependence on this material is damaging our planet and creating mountains of unnecessary waste.Mandy Haggith explores our society's obsession with paper, from its invention in China 2000 years ago to the millions of tonnes we now use every year. Following the paper trail around the world, Mandy discovers the human stories of those affected by the industry, from a Russian ecologist, a Finnish logger and Indonesian tribal leaders, to a Canadian publisher and a Vietnamese paper technologist.In the process, she uncovers the paper industry's dirtiest secrets and sets out simple, practical steps we can take to minimise our own personal use of 20 tonnes of paper over our lifetime.

Genres: Nonfiction

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2008

Reviews

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paper Trails is a thoroughly depressing book. Like many reports on pressing environmental topics, it charts humanity's destruction of one of the world's most used and abused natural resources; paper, and it really does make for some miserable reading. Yet, it's essential to know thy enemy, if you are to try and confront/change it, so it's important to dive in and explore how normal consumers can attempt to change the status quo. In fact, the last chapter offers some useful advice for this.

For those studying environmental and social policies/activism, Paper Trails is a wealth of accessible knowledge which provides an excellent starting point to the vast global subject of paper production.