Many of us have made attempts to be less wasteful in our daily lives. In recent years, online bill payment has become very popular and common. Often, when we get a paper bill from our phone or utility companies in the mail, something is printed on the back which tells us how we can save by paying the bill online. What are the advantages? Well, there is the cost of the postage stamp, of course, and if you have a lot of bills that need to be mailed, those can add up. There is the cost of the envelopes, but most of the time, bills come with pre-printed envelopes for us to use, so that might not count. What about the fact that we are wasting huge amounts of paper? That's not something that you usually pay attention to in the same way you pay attention to the money you're paying out for bills or even to buy stamps and envelopes; but that doesn't mean that there isn't a cost. It's just a less apparent one.
The way that this affects the environment is that it fills up landfills (as much as one fourth of what's in most landfills is paper waste), it increases the amount of trees that need to be cut down (which can have many other effects on the ecosystems in those places, as well as potentially contributing to global warming), and it can cause more pollution because of the chemicals released by the paper making process and those released when the paper breaks down, either when it's put in a landfill or incinerated. One way to help is to buy recycled products. Many kinds of cereals and other foods may come in recycled cardboard boxes, as well as some tissues and paper towels. Buying recycled printer paper can also help. Recycled paper uses less energy to make than new paper from new paper pulp does. So it not only means less trees are cut down, but less energy and natural resources are used to process the recycled pulp and turn it back into usable paper products.
In many cases, we can do things without paper just as easily as with paper, and this can be a lot cheaper and less wasteful. Online bill paying is a good example: we can pay our bills immediately, rather than waiting for the post office to get the bill there and a check to clear. We can do it without using any paper; we just log on to the appropriate website and pay there. The process can even be automated, so the money comes out every month at the same time, and we don't even need to go to the site to pay. Likewise, many faxes could easily be sent without using any paper. Online faxing works by having you pay a monthly fee, and then the faxes arrive as digital files. You don't need to have a fax machine, either, you only need a computer.
About this Author
Tina L. Douglas writes about online fax and identity theft most of the time. It's because of her passion to save nature from danger and losing itself. For her, using online fax means a paperless environment and less hazard for nature.
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