With the advent of email, e-vites and e-readers, per capita use of paper in United States has dropped 46 percent since the year 2000, and drops about 5 percent each year. The decline in paper use has been across the board with number of paper checks issued decreasing from 40 billion a year in 2000 to less than 20 billion now.
While this may be good for trees, paper manufacturers are trying hard to reverse the situation and are pouring in tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to get users back on paper.
Christian Fischer, executive vice president of Georgia Pacific’s packaging segment says:
Few would disagree that paper gets a bad rap. Signature lines on e-mails often remind us to “Save a tree. Don’t print.” Bill collectors encourage us to “Go paperless. Go green.” And when we don’t, we feel guilty. That guilt is definitely an issue we have to deal with.We are trying to reach those who haven’t already made up their minds on the evils of paper.
The campaign’s first commercial, “Letters to Dad “, features a young boy who writes to his father overseas via paper airplanes.
University of Georgia advertising professor Karen King says that it will be a tough job for the paper manufacturers to stem the slide.
They have a tough, uphill climb. I actually think the campaign does a pretty good job of making you realize there are certain things only paper can do.
In spite of the decline in paper consumption in North America, North Americans consume almost 5 times more paper than the world average per capita. Together in 2009, the United States and Canada accounted for 5 percent of the world’s population and consumed 17 percent of the world’s paper.
