#2 meeting

Business is trying to make profit for sure. But is it must a conflict with pursuing sustainability? Is it possible to find a business model to both make money and pursue sustainability?

About paper

Quoted from Greening the Urban Campus, page 34---

Recycled Paper

The University purchases somewhere close to 3 million sheets of paper per yearthrough Purchasing Services, while the computer labs alone are estimated to go through15 million sheets yearlyc. Still, this represents a significant reduction over past years;since 2004, the total amount of paper acquired through Purchasing Services has declinedby 27 percent, perhaps due to increasing use of blackboard as well as third-partyprinting.In 2003, the NYU Senate passed a resolution recommending that all departmentsuse 30 percent post-consumer recycled paper. The following year, the amountspent on recycled paper by the University increased by a third, to nearly 75 percentd.But since then, the amount spent on recycled paper has decreased every year, as theamount of non-recycled or “virgin” paper has increased (see graph below). Because thepaper policy was merely a recommendation issued by the Senate, rather than an administrativemandate, it carried no authority, and many departments continue to use virginpaper despite the fact that it offers no cost or performance differential.

It is important to note, however, that even recycled paper contains significantenvironmental impacts: the recycling process involves extensive bleaching, and involvesmany toxic chemicals. The most sustainable paper strategy would:

• Reduce paper use through awareness campaigns, online distribution and doublesidedprinting (see Indicator 4.1, Recommendation 4.A)
• Require the purchase of FSC-certified paper, which ensures that the paper stockcame from sustainably managed forests (see Indicator 4.2, Recommendation4.A).

Print paper saving

For first class, I printed out some webpages i found about health. I'll read them carefully later, but before that I found a problem. I have 18 articles to print, well...it's not too many, but finally I got 52 pages! Almost as 3 times as I really need! That means if we have good ways to save or re-use these paper, the total amount can be reduced by 2 or 3 times. The paper I printed out are filled full of advertisement, pictures and text infomation that I don't need, even though on the pages where are the articles I need. It's really a HUGE waste! And these prints I won't keep long, probably 1 or 2 days at most. I really don't want to waste these many, but people have to print. This makes me think about that is there a way we can reduce wasting paper?I come up with two ideas. One is in practice, the other one is relying on technology.The fist one is to provide people a way and convenience to reduce wasting paper. I think one of the ways is to collect the used paper somehow, for example provide a paper recycle bin near printer, someone put those paper into printer in some certain time, for using the other side of paper, these paper are mostly people mistake printing or some blank pages that printer gives out. In some other ocassions, people have to take their prints to somewhere else, like me, take some webpages to class for discusstion. But most of time, after people use these paper somewhere or for some time, they won't keep them. So it's very likely for people just leave them somewhere or throw them into the trash bin. I think most people want to contribute for reducing waste, they just need some convenience to do this. So we can provide a kind of convenience for them, to make collecting these paper more easily.My second idea is adding a selection printing feature to browser. People can select an area on webpage to print. In this way, we only need to print the information we need, and save a lot of paper.

#1 meeting (missed)

it's really bad that i missed the first meeting on Wednesday, on the course schedule i got listed this class on Thursday...i missed it, already missed, i can do nothing but catch up with the class. Start to read the syllabus tonight.