jenifriend

So I was a Curious George today and decided to try and find out how much of a tree I use when I throw away a piece of paper at work.  Thank goodness for Jeremy (he’s an accountant), otherwise I would’ve stared at my screen blank-faced all evening trying to figure out a simple fraction.  I was never really good with understanding how fractions broke down.  Either way his patience paid off because we figured it out.  Important Note:  Did you notice I wrote we?  I’m probably fibbing a tad…he did the majority of the figuring while I took notes. 

I digress…

According to, www.answers.yahoo.com, 15-25 reams can be obtained per tree, and each ream makes 500 sheets of paper.  By definition, a ream is a package of 500 sheets of paper.  So, let’s assume, for my example, that the particular tree I received my piece of paper from generated 15 reams.  If I divide 1 (the ream my one sheet of paper came from) into 15 (# of reams generated from tree), I get 0.067, which is the percentage of the tree used to create one ream.  I would then need to divide 0.067 (% of tree used to create one ream) into 500 (# of sheets/ream), which would give me .000133, which is the amount of the tree used to create my one sheet of paper.  Here is the formula compressed together:

1/15 = 0.067
0.067/500 = .000133

In conclusion…I would have to use almost 7500 pieces of paper to use up one tree.  Judging from the amount of paper we recycle at work in the big gray bins…I’d say we’re well over that number on a daily basis.  Having said that, I am taking this opportunity to formally announce that I will do my best to never use another sticky note in the future.  I instead will take the piece of paper typed on where the margins didn’t quite work out, turn it over, and write on the back.  That way I can at least say I exhausted space on both sides of the paper before tossing my .000133 amount of tree into the waste bin.  Maybe I’ll start using them to make origami and decorate…hmmm…