Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1918 — What It Means to America If We Save Instead of Waste Paper of All Kinds [ARTICLE]

What It Means to America If We Save Instead of Waste Paper of All Kinds

By S. A. PENNOCK

Every time you write a letter you use from one to four sheets of paper—perhaps the average might be placed at two sheets. r lwo sheets of paper, at today’s prices, would average about one cent. If you spoil and destroy one sheet in the writing you destroy one-half cent. In America there sare 20,X)0Q,000 families —perhaps 10,000,000 of those families send out an average of two letters a week. If each letter writer destroys one sheet of paper for each letter written 20,000,000 sheets of paper are destroyed each week. This means 10,000,000 cents wasted—or SIOO,OOO. Some families send out less than two letters a week —some, which include our business men, literary workers, professional men, club women, school children —use scores, hundreds, thousands of-sheets of paper every seven days. But if we, as a nation, waste SIOO,OOO a week in waste paper we throw away $5,000,000 a year and more.. But we also throw away or burn our newspapers and magazines—' and multiply our waste of paper by scores and hundreds of times. We throw away envelopes universally. We destroy our wrapping paper and paper bags. We spoil good sheets of paper with memoranda, figures, sketches, which might just as well be made on the envelopes, on the shreds of wasted sheets, on the wrapping papers. It is no exaggeration to say that we waste $100,000,000 worth of paper every year. Probably we waste much more than that —and think what $100,000,000 wo-?Jd do! But that isn’t all —every sheet of paper, after it is used for writing or printing or wrapping, still contains value. It is full of chemicals the government needs. It can be made over into new paper— it can be saved and used again. Figure it yourself on the basis suggested, and see what you and I might save, if we would, by a little forethought —a little employment of odd time, which we would otherwise waste. Then begin —save paper —save every scrap of it that comes your way. Slit your envelopes and use them for memoranda, make your newspapers and magazines into packages and send them to the Red Cross; save wrapping paper and deliver your collections of it to government or other agencies for utilizing it.