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Push Your Pencil on Tree-Free Paper

Nearly half the trees cut in North America feed our paper frenzy, and the pulp and paper industries continue to rely on virgin wood for almost 70 percent of their total fiber supply, while non-wood-fibers represent less than 1 percent of total feedstock inputs.

A Mammoth Mountain of Memos Every 12 months, a single office employee can stack up to a 4-foot-high column of 10,000 sheets of used paper. Photocopying consumes an average of 27 pounds of paper per person, per year.

A rash of reports, juggernauts of junk mail: They all add up to piles of paper routed to the recycling bin or, worse, to the wastebasket. Despite the computer-age promise of a paper-free world, each American uses 700 pounds of paper every year, on average, and that amount is growing rapidly. By 2010, a 50 percent increase in paper consumption is expected worldwide.

Constant overlogging has left less than 5 percent of the nation's virgin forests standing, according to Fiber Futures, a nonprofit environmental advocacy and consulting group. Despite projected shortages, wood fiber continues to be the No. 1 raw ingredient for paper production.

So what's a tree-hugger to do?

You can seek out tree-free alternatives. Paper made from the following materials not only decreases the pressure on our forests, but reduces the amount of chemicals and energy required to make paper, and expands the market for available fibers that are otherwise underutilized.

A member of the hibiscus family (Hibiscus cannabinus), kenaf (pronounced kuh-naf) is related to cotton and okra, and grows well in many regions of the United States. (Kenaf's delicate, creamy yellow flower is pictured above.) United States Department of Agriculture studies show that kenaf produces 6 to 10 tons of dry fiber per acre per year, a yield three to five times greater than the yield from Southern pine trees. Southern pine trees can take years to reach harvestable size, while kenaf reaches a mature height of 12 to 18 feet over its five month growing season. Fewer chemicals and less energy are required to prepare the plant for papermaking. (For example, Vision Paper's kenaf paper is totally chlorine free.) The more lignin (a polymer related to cellulose) a plant has, the more chlorine required to soften the fibers. Chlorine also is used to whiten the fibers. Its use in the papermaking industry has long been fraught with controversy, due to the fact that chlorine use produces dioxins, which are proven carcinogens.