A few months ago, all used computer paper, empty plastic bottles and spent batteries at the Winnipeg Free Press offices ended up in the trash.
Sure, there were lots of those blue recycling bins, but nobody seemed to know where the contents of those bins went.
Every month, the Free Press uses 1,600 tonnes of newsprint that contains almost no recycled fibre. The enviro footprint is equal to about 147,342,000 pounds of carbon emissions.
It seemed that while the Free Press recycles everything from car parts to wooden pallets -- not to mention about 95 per cent of its waste and scrap newsprint -- some of the most conspicuous blue-bin basics were landing in the landfill.
That's what a newly formed Free Press committee discovered this year as it started looking at ways to cut the company's carbon footprint.
The process is just beginning, publisher Bob Cox said. "We will set firm goals, and we'll do it soon."
Now, it's time to come clean on our environmental practices -- ways in which the company is greener than you'd think, where it has some catching up to do and how it's working to clean up its act -- starting with those plastic bottles and white paper.
Much of the stewardship group's first eight months on the job was spent playing environmental catch-up, figuring out which eco-friendly practices needed to be started.
The committee found the company already recycled a surprising array of items, but much of it wasn't seen by employees: plates and film used in printing; vehicle batteries; car parts; metal straps used to hold pallets together; scrap wood.
"I couldn't even tell you how many thousands of pallets we've recycled," said former vice-president of operations and production Glenn Williams, who headed many of the efforts.
He said 95 per cent of the waste paper used by the Free Press each year is recycled. But some of the most common items that could be recycled, things such as white paper and plastics, wound up in landfills, despite the fact recycling programs have been in place in Winnipeg for years.
Those are areas where "we really were a little behind," said Marnie Strath, marketing director and stewardship committee head.
Long before "green" became a buzzword, saving energy was a priority for the company, Williams said. Most Free Press offices use energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, and Williams has a spreadsheet detailing efforts to save energy over the years, such as new lighting fixtures installed last year in the mailroom, garage and shipping area, a change that is expected to save $5,800 a year.
A newspaper's environmental impact, not surprisingly, is based largely on its newsprint. Growing online audiences aside, the dead-tree edition of the Free Press is the most obvious target for scrutiny.
"For newspaper publishers, their largest biodiversity footprint, their largest climate footprint is from their paper," said Shiloh Bouvette, with the forest protection group Markets Initiative.
The Free Press could improve on the use of its newsprint, said Bouvette whose group campaigns for sustainable practices to save old-growth forests.
Every month the Free Press uses roughly 1,600 tonnes of newsprint -- mainly from Alberta Newsprint, owned in part by Free Press company chairman Ron Stern, with the remainder coming from Manitoba's only paper mill, Tembec, in Pine Falls.
Tembec stopped including recycled fibre in its paper earlier this year due to high de-inking costs, leaving the Free Press with newsprint that contains almost no recycled content. The percentage is negligible, Williams said, compared to the Canadian industry average of 30 to 32 per cent.
The environmental footprint of all that virgin newsprint is equal to about 147,342,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Environmental Defence Fund Paper Calculator at www.papercalculator.org. That has the same effect as driving 13,000 cars for a year. By comparison, using 20 per cent recycled fibre would shave off about 14,951,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
If a company is using all virgin fibre to produce its paper, "there's a lot of room for improvement," said Bouvette, who was quick to cite challenges publishers face, including high costs, limited supplies and a competitive market for recycled content.
"It's a question of availability," said Cox, pointing out the enormous appetite for recycled newsprint worldwide, including demand from rising powerhouse China. "If it was available, we'd be buying it."
Since newsprint can only be recycled a few times before the fibres are too damaged to use again, "somewhere along the stream of paper use, someone's got to be using virgin paper," he said.
Bouvette thinks newspapers need to send a message to their suppliers that recycled fibre is a priority. But Cox said he's not sure he concurs, and believes mills are finding it tough to compete for a limited supply of recycled fibre on the market.
While many of Tembec's contracts are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, a process for responsibly managed forests, Alberta Newsprint does not, and neither company has Markets Initiative's rigorous Ancient Forest Friendly stamp.
However, Alberta Newsprint has received praise for its high standards of waste treatment and environmental education and was named an environmental champion by the Alberta government this year for showing voluntary stewardship.
Newspapers often point out virgin newsprint is made with wood chips, a waste by-product. However, Markets Initiative argues the opposite: newsprint makes up 30 per cent of pulp and paper production in Canada's boreal forest, making wood chip profits essential for timber companies.
The Free Press has made strides in recent months. White printer paper can now be recycled along with plastic bottles, and the company has switched to using rechargeable instead of throw-away batteries. The Free Press is also looking at assigning an employee to focus on sustainability issues and is circulating a survey among employees to gauge interest in Winnipeg Transit's EcoPass, a program where employers subsidize bus passes.
In some areas, cutting waste and cutting costs have gone hand in hand. The Free Press is in the midst of changing a long-standing policy of giving a TV Plus book to all Saturday subscribers, whether they want it or not. To cut costs and prevent tonnes of wasted paper, the company decided to let city home delivery subscribers voluntarily opt in. The deadline to sign up is Sept. 6.
lindsey.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca
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