The most logical thing to do now to help our environment a little is to stop killing trees. I overuse the word killing because it implies that trees are sentient, feeling creatures and I’m not too sure about that. I do know that I like the stuff they do like give me shade when I’m hot and sweaty and produce air for me to breathe. So they’re on my good list. So the obvious ways that we can make sure that more of them stay around are listed below:

Recycle used paper more. I understand that this is a time consuming process so I don’t expect everyone to do it. Even if you don’t live in a neighborhood or community that automatically picks up recycled trash, you can take it to a close local place like a college campus or local facility.
Buy recycled paper. It costs exactly the same as non-recycled paper but kills fewer trees.
Don’t get receipts. There’s not much that I can say about that but instead of getting transaction confirmation as ATM’s or at the grocery store, just say “no.” They are little pieces of paper but they save a lot of trees annually (I made a commitment to not fill this excerpt with numbers and math).
Use resources that can be reused or renewed. That’s ambiguous but simpler than it sounds. Use a cloth towel to clean windows, use paper towels that you can “rinse and reuse” for cleaning, use porcelain plates instead of paper, and on and on. You might have to think outside of the box to fulfill this.

There a probably a lot more than I could ever write, but I think you get the point. The only other one that I want to mention because it’s kind of big is start doing everything electronically. Of course there is some margin of error with electronic communication, but it’s only slightly greater than doing whatever you’re doing by paper. For instance, file your taxes online. It’s faster and more secure. Read the news online instead of buying a newspaper. It’s more up-to-date and has live updates available with video feeds. Students, start doing all your assignments online or submitting them to your teacher by e-mail. This is becoming a more widely accepted method of submitting homework and it can be graded faster because the teacher can run programs to check for spelling and grammar issues or test to see if it was plagiarized. Register your car (no waiting in line), send pictures to friends and family, check your bank statements (easier to read and can be sorted and filtered), pay your bills online (faster), order everything online (you can normally find it for cheaper), and I could just list off so many things that you’d get sick of reading my blog and never come back. Either way, the point is simple. Stop using paper.

When the tallies are made though, the biggest user/abusers of paper resources are business. So since we almost all work for some type of business try talking to your manager about more Eco-friendly ways of conducting business. All of those things above apply to big businesses too.

Berry. Me.

Change The World: Volume 1 Issue 4: Recycle Paper