The History of Paper and its Relevancy in The Modern World
Digital world
Image shows how online schooling works, from “The Covid-19 pandemic has changed education forever” by World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/
Before the pandemic, when schools had in-person learning, schools used enormous amounts of paper on daily basis for homework assignments, tests, resource handouts and many more reasons. Approximately 25-75 pieces of paper would be used by one teacher a day. Considering how many teachers there are in one school, and how many schools are there in a country, that is a lot of paper being used regularly. With Covid-19 more than 1.2 billion children around the world are now online learning, meaning the all the homework, tests, and assignments are available in PDF forms.
Environmental impacts of paper making
Image of paper-making process, inserted from “What is the environmental impact of Paper?” From WorldAtlas https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-the-environmental-impact-of-paper.html
With paper making comes a lot of benefits but even more damage, especially to the environment. Starting with deforestation, where over 30 million acres of forest are destroyed yearly. The process also uses a lot of water and energy, which causes air pollution. Roughly, 26% of solid waste dumped in dumping sites is discarded paper and paperboard. Pulp and paper mills are sources of nutrients, solids and dissolved matter like lignin in wastewater discharges. These go ahead to pollute the rivers and lakes that they are released into.