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"Paper's contribution to a landfill's contents has
remained relatively even, at well over 40 percent...newspapers alone
may take up some 13 percent or more of the space in the average
landfill...(since 1960) the volume of discarded magazines has doubled
to 1.2 percent."
"Paper and many other organics...tend not so much to
degrade in landfills as to mummify. They do not, in other words, take
up appreciably less space as time goes by."
"(P)ublishing is not what you'd call a very
environmentally friendly industry. Considering the paper on which we
print, the inks we use, the photographic processes we apply to generate
films and plates, the junk mail we send to promote and bill...the
conventional method of applying ink to paper to produce a product is
antithetical to a true green ethic."
"A magazine--once it's read and disposed of--is nothing
more than a big bundle of chemically coated paper that has to be either
burned or buried...Recent studies show that magazines contribute up to
6.3 percent of the solid paper waste found in our nation's landfills."
"One area of the publishing business that loads up the
landfills...(is) newsstand sales...the average sell- through on the
newsstand for a special-interest consumer magazine is about 38 percent.
This means that for every 100,000 copies distributed, 62,000 are thrown
away without anyone ever reading them."
Though glossy paper is recyclable...only about two-
thirds of it is paper. Clay and fillers make up the rest...adhesives
used for binding and inserts...are hard to break down in the recycling
process...Cover coatings, used to protect and increase the gloss of
many magazine covers, are difficult or impossible to recycle."
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