WTBTS impact on the environment nubmers, repost from another jw site

by i_drank_the_wine 8 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  i_drank_the_wine

  taken from: http://www.thebroadroad.com/forum/#topic/Bring-to-ruin-those-ruining-the-earth-trees-WTBTS.htm

  I never found statistics on the amount of paper the WTBTS wastes, but I think they're might be a little hypocritical by parading the "he will bring to ruin those ruining the earth" verse that they always quote. It got me curious and I decided to crunch some numbers...

  They print 42 million Washtowels a month, more than any other magazine in the world (http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/wp_E_20110501.pdf). This is a stupendous amount of paper when you consider the number of other things they also publish.

  The WTBTS does not release numbers on other printing endeavours, but just for argument sake let's say that the monthly printing of Awakes, NWT's, tracts, brochures, song books, daily texts, memorial invites, time slips, discarded excess paper, misprints, thicker paper book covers, boxes for shipping, paper records, and all the other books combined uses the same amount of paper (although I would feel pretty safe guessing that the number is higher) as their monthly Watchtower printing.

  So, 42 million public Washtowels a month, at 32 pages each (16 pieces of paper) = 672,000,000 pieces of paper a month X 2 (as per above conservative guesstimate on total printing of everything else that they do) gives us 1,344,000,000 pieces of paper a month, 16,128,000,000 pieces of paper a year.

  Paper is generally made from pine trees, with the average tree yielding 80,500 sheets of paper(http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/question16.htm)

  So, using rough math based on their own data and some other referenses, the WTBTS is devouring at least 200,387 trees a year.

  According to the US forest service, there was an estimated 286,464,432 live timberland trees in the US in 2002 (their count did not include Alaska, and this count is undoubtedly a lower number now): http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/slides/Trend-data/Web%20Historic%20Spreadsheets/1977_2002_Live_trees_dbh.xls

  Using a program to count the number of blue pixels in the map below and using the figures above, I made a graphical representation of the number of estimated trees eaten by the WTBTS every YEAR (orange square) vs the government's live timber count. This orange block representing the annual tree usage looks small, but is roughly the same size as all but one of the Hawaiian islands and some of the the smaller states too. If they're monthly printing of everything other than the public Watchtower is larger than that of the public Watchtower (which I think it is) then this box grows even larger.

  

  I'm sure you'll agree, whether you did this yourself or not, that a large percentage of JW's don't even come close to reading each Watchtower, nevermind all the other books and brochures that they spam everyone with. Nevermind the percentage of "placed" pieces of literature being read... most of which wind up in laundromat garbage cans. Add in all the fuel and energy used to print this trash, and we have a printing, real estate, and holdings corporation that is throwing a massive amount of our dwindling tree growth straight down the drain.

  If I didn't calculate something right or if I left anything out let me know. I haven't had my coffee yet.

  Curiosity turned off... back to work...
• 

  lola-rabbit

  HollyMolly... that's alot of trees! What happened to "GO GREEN"
• 

  i_drank_the_wine

  A friend of mine just brought up a good point, which could suck the wind out of that argument. What if the jw's are using all recycled paper? Still seems like a terrible amount of waste though. Not sure if recycled printing paper is like recycled paper towels and such, but usually the "go green" stuff at the market is more expensive than the new stuff. WT seems like some cheap-asses to me, so i dunno.
• 

  Yan Bibiyan

  Hm, you on the money, bro...

  ...problem is, they are on the money too.

  It is a business and the minute it does not make financial sense, there will be an "adjustment".

  This is in no way to say that the paper waste is not tremendous, so is with printed catalogs in circulation. I am yet to see, however, Macy's catalog spewing hatred towards, say, JCPenney customers.....
• 

  purplesofa

  I have a question, are those numbers for Magazines worldwide or just for US?

  If it's worldwide, it's not a fair comparison.
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  i_drank_the_wine

  good point yan. then again people in the tree hugger movement are against any form of wasteful tree killings, and more copies of the wt are printed every month than any other periodical on earth. theres definite ex-jw bias there, but i stil think it sort of gives an idea of how much stuff they spit out, knowing that a lot of it just gets thrown away. every time i moved when i was a jw i had bags full of unplaced mags that i just threw in the garbage.
• 

  factfinder

  The monthly printings for the w and g are the total printed worldwide. During 2010 about 985 million copies were printed. During 2008 book production was 108.6 million (28 million in Wallkill alone.) Each year over 2 billion books, Bibles, brochures , booklets, magazines and tracts are printed not including small printing which numbers into the hundreds of millions.

  As impressive as these numbers are, they need to be put into perspective.

  The largest book printers in the world produce the following yearly:

  RR Donnelley & Sons= 1 billion books

  Quadgraphics = over 900 million books

  Bertelsmann= over 500 million books

  Courier=over 200 million books.

  These companies also produce billions and billions of magazines, catalogs, newletters and other items every year-they use FAR MORE paper than the wts.

  These huge comercial printing companies print for thousands of publishing companies and clients. They use far more ink , paper, energy and other materials than the wts does.

  In all fairness- if you want to be critical of how much paper is used by the wts each year (much much less then the above mentioned companies or the large newspaper plants such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, USA Today, etc.) then what about all of the trees used by the other major printing companies?

  I find such criticism of the WTS to be unfair.
• 

  breakfast of champions

  Ultimately, print media is moribund. The concept of going door to door with "magazines" is an anachronism. There is no way this will last another 5 years.
• 

  WTWizard

  That only represents part of the waste. How much energy do they waste processing those trees, transporting them, and then printing the rags? I could imagine a square representing the amount of energy wasted in this way as another orange square. Additionally, how much more energy is wasted delivering the rags and littera-trash from door to door? I would bet that that is significant. And, as they are in on the theory that carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming, they should be afraid that they are contributing significantly to that as well by wasting all that energy.

  On top of that, how much more energy is wasted going to householders? The biggest waste is when the householder has to open the door on very cold or very hot days, letting cooled or heated air out. If they were cooking, something is as likely to burn while they are being held up by the witlesses. Bath water gets cold. Food gets cold. Lights are left on, wasting more energy--every little bit adds up.

  Then, the Kingdumb Hells waste more energy. I have never seen climate control systems that are so consistently crappy as I have on Kingdumb Hells. Besides, they don't know how to manage the heat or cold. I once saw some idiot putting the heat up full blast, and then having to blast the air conditioner (it was about 13 o C/55 F that evening). Their maintenance of air conditioners leaves much to be desired--I wonder when the last time the exterior coils were cleaned. Plus, all the rubbish they generate. They go eat out because they need to keep their time going, or they get some recyclable glass bottles. Inevitably, it all ends up in the rubbish instead of being recycled. Fact is, I never saw a recycling bin at a Kingdumb Hell.

  And, yes the trees wasted on the rags are a factor. That is the cost--what is the benefit? Every tree lost, every molecule of pollution, every bit of energy wasted--and for nothing. Does society receive benefit equivalent to this cost, or greater, in exchange? And, do they even bother replacing the trees they cut down to make the rags like some "Satanic" worldly companies do?