The Green Road Less Taken By…

Just before sustainability marketing class last class, I went to staples to buy some lined paper. To my pleasant surprise, there were many eco-friendly choices. Amongst the bunch, I feasted my eyes this blue sky-ed green grass-ed pack and grabbed it. Of course, I am not such a shallow consumer as to just pick the prettiest package and buy it… I read the cover too! It differed from the other eco-friendly papers because instead of being recycled paper, it was made from sugarcane waste!

I decided to look up some information about the Sustainable Earth brand by Staples, but didn’t find too much impressive information. So instead, I decided to do some research on sugarcane waste and what other ways that we are currently extracting its uses to its fullest potential.

Sugarcane waste or bagasse is frequently used as fuel and in paper making. As fuel, it is used as bio-fuel and is often used to generate energy for sugar mills. The energy is enough to fuel the mill and them some! The CO2 that is created from burning the bagasse is equivalent to the amount of CO2 that the sugarcanes absorb in their growing phase. They call this ‘greenhouse gas-neutral’. As a fuel, it also serves in producing electricity.

As for paper production, 5-10% of paper worldwide is made up of agricultural crops. Bagasse is the most notable one. Agricultural paper production is valued between $5-10 billion dollars! In my opinion, thats a lot of dough for something that is a by-product for sugarcane juice!

As for the paper that I bought from Staples, its just all-right. It is very thin and you can see the contents past the paper easily. But at least it doesn’t rip apart when I erase on it!

Hope my blog was informative… I’ve been thinking about starting a new episode format to my blogs… it would be called “The Green Road Less Taken By” (OK. My friend Robert Frost gave me a little help with the title but…) – It would be about me and my daily struggles with myself to make the right choices.  Just an idea…! =D