The Real Benefits of Shredding
When it comes to shredding, we all understand the immediate benefit of our information being shredding to an unrecognisable pile of shredded paper, but did you know, the benefits for the environment go much further than that?
Fact: As secure shredders, we recycle every shred of paper that we destruct.
So, what happens to the paper as soon as the truck moves away or the shred bin is emptied?
The shredded paper is stored and packed tightly together in bales/stacks. It is measure by tonne, therefore, we can how many tons we shred per month.
This number can be equated to an equivalent number of trees that would have been taken to produce the same amount of paper. From what we understand, one tonne of recycled paper is equivalent to 17 trees.
Some other interesting facts associated with using wood to make paper vs recycling paper include*:
- Producing paper from wood is the first step in what should always be a virtuous lifecycle for paper. Once virgin fibre papers have been used in their primary use; they can be recycled four to five further times until the cellulose fibres become too short to be used for paper; at which point they form the de-inking residue that is used in agriculture (e.g., fertiliser) and construction (e.g., bricks).
- Each time paper is recycled, environmental savings are made as it takes less energy to produce paper from wastepaper than it does from wood which also means less CO2 produced in the manufacturing process and less methane produced from the paper breaking down in landfill.
- It takes less water to break down wastepaper than it does to break down wood.
- If paper recycling is used to the full potential, wood is only needed once to produce five cycles of paper which also means saving waste from landfill five times.
- It only takes 1.2 tonnes of wastepaper to produce one tonne of recycled paper whereas it takes 2.5 tonnes of wood to produce one tonne of virgin fibre paper.
As a company, we also have a policy to recycle our own paper waste and partake in our destruction & shred program for all the documents we produce. It would just go against the grain if we did not!! (Pun intended!)
*Source: https://recycled-papers.co.uk/green-matters/why-use-recycled-papers/saving-wood
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