Environmentalism in the Electronic Age

I came across a news release about the International BoatBuilders Exposition & Conference (IBEX) trade show in Louisville being promoted as a “paperless trade show”. The Kentucky Exposition Center (KEC), Mayor Jerry Abramson and the company that created the solution, Viridistor LLC, are out to prove that “paperless” is better for the environment. They claimed it would eliminate “40 tons of paper and save 1,000 trees” and reduce huge amounts of trash. The CEO of Viridistor, Terry Mullin, proudly proclaimed, “That’s a powerful statement about greenhouse gas reduction and efforts by both the IBEX Show and the City of Louisville to reduce the municipal carbon footprint,”

Replacing all trade show literature is accomplished by issuing each attendee a plastic USB micro-memory chip (memory stick) made by Kingston, a $4 billion California memory/storage device maker. So instead of picking up a brochure at every exhibitor’s booth, the attendee inserts the memory drive into a “Green Box” at the exhibitor booth and downloads their literature PDFs. Later back in the office, they could print the files IF they wanted. To obtain the 40 tons of paper saved, the company calculated that of the approximately 5300 attendees each one would have collected 15 pounds of paper. As Mr. Mullin pronounced, “The best part is, event attendees no longer have to lug around hundreds of pounds of paper at an event.”

And sometime after the show, the attendee can erase the USB memory drive to use for other projects or discard it. What a win/win!
Not exactly walking on water, but probably next on their list.

But I wondered what materials are used to manufacture a USB drive?
AND where it was made?
And how long do you stand in line to accomplish that electronic transfer? What happens if the transfer fails? Is it be possible that some attendees do not wait and never download the info at all? And how many attendees actually “lug around hundreds of pounds of paper”?

More importantly, I wondered if anyone considered the following facts?

On average, it takes approximately 550 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to produce the amount of paper each of us consumes in a year (about 440 pounds). That same amount of electricity will power a single computer for only 5 months.

Or this fact:
Of all discarded electronic devices, only 18% are currently recycled. Nearly 2 million tons were dumped in 2006 and it is estimated that 30-40 million PCs will be discarded over the next few years. Electronic waste is now our single largest toxic waste export. In contrast, nearly 60% of all paper is recycled AND more than 63% of the fiber used to manufacture new paper is from recycled sources.

To manufacture paper, the primary materials are all renewable. The paper and forest products industry replenishes more resources than it uses by planting 1.7 million trees every day-more than three times what it is harvested.
To manufacture computers typically requires mining and refining dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver and palladium. Also it requires the extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. A computer’s life span is relatively short- 4 to 5 years and electronics have become the world’s fastest growing waste stream.

Factoid: An individual who reads a daily printed newspaper uses 20% less carbon dioxide per year than a person reading web based news for 30 minutes.
And: In the U.S., less than 10% of power comes from renewable resources while in the pulp/paper industry it is over 60%.

Lastly: In the U.S. alone, idle computers that remain on overnight cost an estimated $2.8 billion of energy per year. On a carbon dioxide (CO2) basis, that’s 20 million tons or the equivalent of 4 million cars on the road.

While the PR release about the paperless trade show sounds like an big environmental plus, with closer examination, the puffery is revealed as far more devastating for the environment. It will cause greater carbon dioxide emissions and create thousands of never-degradable chemical time bombs. Oh, and one other thing, the USB drives are manufactured in China.
Since this new paperless program will eliminate many paper manufacturing, graphic design, printing, trucking and maintenance jobs, I wonder what is the Mayor’s stance on that?


Sources: Alliance to Save Energy, PC Energy Report 2009; Swedish Royal Institute for Technology; Institute for Supply Management (formerly NAPM); American Forest and Paper Association; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; International Energy Agency; Rochester Institute of Technology, Print in the Mix; Direct Marketing Association; Greenbiz.com; Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI); Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); World Business Council for Sustainable Development