With school in full swing, students will be using more and more paper to finish their various class projects. Right on campus, Iowa State’s Printing and Copy Services is a self-sustaining business operating under the Board of Regents and partnered with the Live Green Initiative. They supply all paper printing and copy needs as well as T-shirt printing and banner and poster production for the campus and its students. Printing and Copy Services seeks to be as environmentally conscious as possible, obtaining 80 percent of their paper from sustainably managed farms and an overlapped 85 percent is recycled paper product.

“Wood is truly sustainable; more trees are planted in the United States than harvested,” said Steve Weigel, director of Printing and Copy Services.

In fact, three trees are planted for every one harvested in the United States. As said Weigel, 60 percent of the paper in the United States is recycled, and there is an increasing trend in sustainably-managed forests and paper mills that use renewable resources, such as wind energy.

“There is a misconception that paper isn’t sustainable. A lot of people don’t think about the negative environmental side effects of using computer technology,” said Rob Louden, computer publishing coordinator of Printing and Copy Services.  An average email causes an emission of 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide. With around 62 trillion emails sent annually, the emissions are comparable to a car driving around the earth 1.6 million times.

Printing and Copy Services also recycles 600 pounds of cardboard per week and reuses many of their ream boxes and delivery cartons for other purposes. They do not use metal plate.  They use water soluble chemicals, and 97 percent of their dyes are soy and vegetable based. This limits chemical wastes to a minimum. Printing and Copy Services was formally certified sustainable under the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. However, the fees to use the certification logo became too expensive, and there was little demand for the logo from campus customers.

“Part of being sustainable is being financially sustainable,” Weigel said.  In alignment with this belief, Printing and Copying Services has revoked their certification but has kept business as usual, continuing to maintain the environmental standards they upheld under certification.

Printing and Copying Services has five locations across campus.  The main plant is located on the north side of campus.  Other locations include inside the Union Drive Community Center, the Memorial Union, the Scheman Building and Parks Library.