The Kids are Alright...

A reader writes:

I'm an 8th grader from Washington State who has been working on a project concerning paperless schools. In our research we found a website that equated a ream - 500 pages of paper - to 6% of a tree.

From this number we calculated that our school of 220 students uses 45 trees worth of paper per school year, and we have been taking steps to inform our classmates about that.

Thanks for your research; you've got a whole lot of trees out there in Washington State to take care of! Keep up the good work!

Anyone for Logging Logging?

Concerning getting students to figure out the real price they are paying for using paper, a reader writes:

Also, you could do a calculation on how many trees you are sparing (I haven't found a definitive number for this yet so if anyone has a reference, much appreciated).

Ok, TeachPaperless Readers, the challenge is on: what are the real numbers in terms of trees cut down in relation to paper consumption? I had been thinking about it in terms of methane and noxious gas emissions related to paper production and then in the ultimate landfill breakdown of paper, but I'd love to know the real numbers in terms of logging and manufacturing.