Change the Margins

These Come From Trees stickers

You all know I'm a big sucker for small efforts trying to make big differences...who knew I'd find my latest pet campaign in an airport bathroom. After an exhausting 6 a.m. flight to Boston this past Friday, I decided to freshen up in the bathroom before heading out to rental car hell. Every paper towel dispenser had a sticker slapped on it that said "Remember...these come from trees." Got me to immediately cut down on my paper towel consumption.

Simple.
Brilliant.
Easy.

You can find out more about the campaign at http://thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com/.

Numbers

No, this is not about the television show where mathematicians solve crimes the FBI can't seem to wrap their heads around. Just wanted to let y'all know that I've posted updated facts & figures on the STATS page on the site. There's a lot more specific information about how much you'll save by changing margins, as well as updated general stats about the paper industry.

For those of you who are using the numbers to convince your companies or colleges that there's merit in instituting a Margins program, I've also cited where I've gotten the stats from at the bottom of the page. Feel free to check out the sources for additional info you may find helpful.

Environmental Defense Rocks My World

One of my biggest frustrations in working on this campaign has been in trying to find the right stats to pass along when people ask for help in taking the idea to their companies or schools. The internet is an amazing place, but as we all know, you can waste a TON o'time searching and searching and searching and still not finding exactly what you need.

Yesterday, I finally hit paydirt! I followed a link on the "Experts" section of  The 11th Hour website to Forest Ethics. After nosing around there for a bit, I found a report which mentioned a bunch of facts & figures, all credited to a paper calculator created by Environmental Defense.

It's an amazing tool that allows businesses and individuals to easily figure out the impact they could make by reducing various factors in their paper consumption. There are also a ton of reports from the initiatives the company has worked on, so I'll be spending some time with those this weekend mining them for facts and figures relevant to my own li'l project.