A Tonne of Paper

We have all heard the statistic that recycling one tonne of paper saves 17 trees. The Canadian paper industry will tell you that our paper is now made from 50% wood chips (which would otherwise be landfilled), 25% recycled paper and the rest from trees that are rejected for lumber production, so maybe the comparison doesn't hold anymore. We were curious, though, about how much paper is a tonne. We can picture 17 trees quite easily, but couldn't bring up a mental image of a tonne of paper. Those involved in the paper recycling business probably have a handle on this, but for the rest of us, we did some simple calculations...

One tonne is:
222,841 sheets of office paper
	20,964 empty tissue boxes
5,397 rolls of 2-ply toilet paper
	4,351 daily newspapers (e.g., StarPhoenix size)
2,703 office paper-sized cardboard boxes

(Source: June 2001 WasteWatch)

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