World's Richest Self-Made Woman: A Paper Recycling Entrepreneur

Observant of the trend for Europeans to show keen interest in all things green, Financial Times has just introduced us to a world-scale female Tree Hugging entrepreneur, Ms. Zhang Yin, who is described in the article as "worth an estimated $3.4bn." Remarkably, Ms Zhang, after starting up Nine Dragons Paper just a few years ago, has become "the world's richest self-made woman, surpassing US talk show host Oprah Winfrey and J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author". Now here's the "kicker" as we say in the US. "Ms Zhang's listed company, of which she owns 72 per cent, buys scrap paper from the US and processes it in China for sale". Incredible in so many ways. North-American pulp producers clear cut Boreal and Piedmont forests to produce virgin fiber for paper making, hitting, at best, a recycled content in the 10 to 20 percent range in final products. A good part of your paper recycle bin contents, then, goes to China, where the Boreal gets "hugged" into products we might buy back. The other possible market scenario (we don't know which market view is correct) is that China, having devastated native forests and failed to create a sustainable forestry program, has forced its paper industry to scavange what they can, pulliing North America into a scrap cellulose depletion mode to serve non-American markets. Hold your temper now. The "real" scenario, whichever that might be, is driven by other less visible forces that you, our readers, are partly responsible for.

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The original article is available at the FT website.



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Offices Going Green - Or are they?

Lexmark Research Reveals Home Environmentalists Go Green at Work

The ‘green’ revolution is truly established across households in the UK which is having a ‘knock-on’ positive affect on environmentally sound behaviour in the office, according to new research from Lexmark, with a massive 85% saying their behaviour in the office is environmentally friendly.

A new study by the printing solutions provider of over 500 office workers in the UK reveals that thinking about the environmental impact of day to day tasks is fast becoming habitual with 93% recognising that printing at work has a big impact on the environment.

Time for more action
It’s clear that office workers are keen to see greener workplaces but they also claim that their companies are not helping – 38% claim that their company does not care about paper wastage and 35% don’t think energy waste is on their employers’ agenda. In response to this, over a third, 39% felt that the best way to ensure that companies care about the environment was for governments or the EU to pass laws forcing companies to change the way they work. A further 30% feel manufacturers should play a larger part in educating office workers what to buy and why.

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IT Professionals in Paper Pile-Up

IT professionals are straining under the weight of thousands of tons of unread documents as we print out and pile up more paperwork than ever before, according to new research from printer experts Lexmark. The profession came second in a poll of the untidiest desks in Britain.

Lexmark conducted the research as part of a campaign for more responsible printing in the workplace. £230million worth of printed paper is wasted in British businesses every year, with one in five sheets lost on desks, left on the printer or binned within five minutes.

Compared to other professions IT professionals have the second most untidy desks in the
country. They are also the most likely of the professions to eat at their desks.
The ‘paperweight pile-up’ adds up to 2,354 million sheets of wasted paper in offices across the UK and a 2.5 kilometers tall in-tray, weighing almost 12,000 tons, as much as 800 doubledecker buses. *

A spring clean is urgently required. Just 4% of IT professionals claimed to have a clutter-free desk, despite almost half of them (40%) acknowledging that an untidy desk leads to high levels of stress.

“Paperweight pile-up means businesses are wasting a fortune and losing productivity.” Said Giovanni Giusti, managing director, Lexmark UK.

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Reduce Paper Wastage at Offices

When you go to a bank to apply for a new loan, a new credit card or get a second mortgage, you may have noticed that you are required to sign papers that range anywhere from 2 pages to 20 pages. Many of these sheets of papers are recycled paper, which is better than nothing. Also each time, the mortgage rates have gone down, so has the tendency to get mortgage refinanced.

Lexmark has conducted a study on the paper wastage in Europe and according to their report, UK businesses top in paper wastage.

You can get a copy of the report from:
UK businesses top European paper-waste league




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Do you need to recycle?

Earth 911 empowers the Earth’s citizenry with community-specific “actionable” environmental information for you to use in everyday life for the purpose of living responsibly by contributing to the solution of sustainability.

While sustainable prevention programs are by far the best way to protect our environment, the costs associated with many of the programs designed to accomplish this can be astronomical. That is why the use of the Earth 911 Public and Private Sector Partnership is so important in effectuating prevention ideals. Through this Partnership, economies of scale and scope are achieved, promoting this public service across the nation and centralizing environmental resources into one user-friendly neutral and non-governmental network.

Today, Americans consider the environment as one of the top three priorities facing our country. In the past, most environmental programs have focused on, either repairing damage that has already been sustained, or attempting to return the environment to its original state before the advancement of industrialized societies. While these retroactive concepts of environmental protection are critical to cleaning up existing problems, the proactive solution that Earth 911 provides is an unparalleled response to today’s environmental challenges.

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http://earth911.org/



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Renewable Energy: Bioenergy

Renewable Energy: Bioenergy

In order to avoid dangerous climate change, Australia needs to dramatically reduce its greenhouse pollution by 80-90% by 2050. In addition to reducing our energy use, we need to be sourcing much more of our energy from renewable sources, including bioenergy. Australia currently sources just 8 percent of its electricity from renewable energy.

Bioenergy can bring multiple benefits for landscape repair and biodiversity, as well as the energy contribution. However, some bioenergy systems can do environmental harm, so it is important to look at the benefits and drawbacks of the whole system.

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http://www.cooltheglobe.com/article?article=21


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