Every year and a half I organize a study day for +/- 500 participants. Printing all handouts and texts produces a mountain of paper every year. I also know that not everyone actually reads all that paper. That’s why I want to give participants the opportunity to decide for themselves what to print or not. That is why I am thinking of handing out a USB stick to participants. What I want to know is: what weighs the most on the environment? The mountain of paper or the USB stick?
Answer
Hello,
My congratulations in advance with the idea of ​​handing out USB sticks, this is to your credit, there should be more such initiatives.
Giving a strict environmental answer to your question is difficult because it is not easy to calculate the environmental impact of the construction of a USB stick and the production of paper.
It is a fact that a lot of paper is not read and is thrown away, which is certainly not good for our environment and the mountain of waste. However, if one of the study day participants effectively reads the paper and uses it several times, the yield is high and the environmental burden is small. That is why it is very good that you leave the choice between paper and USB stick.
It is also a fact that a USB stick has a high environmental mirror if it were only used once. Disposing of the USB stick after reading the documentation certainly weighs more on the environment (such a small electronic device in a container park is not noticed and therefore not recycled) than the disposal of paper (easily recyclable).
But that is precisely the point: such a USB stick will not be thrown away and will certainly be used to store other data for a long time to come. A USB stick is still a coveted piece of electronics and will be used with great efficiency. Here’s an important tip to use this USB stick as a marketing aspect as well. Stick your data on it, possibly with a marker, but especially place a folder on the stick with some data from your organization, and also know that you can give one USB stick a name (e.g. the name of your organization) (you do this by the ‘rename’ function in Windows) so that this name becomes visible when exploring on a PC. You can’t think of better advertising … and that saves another flyer or business card.
May I hereby advise you to purchase the smallest possible USB stick in memory size, this is cheaper for you, but also better for the environment … and actually memory is mainly made of a bit of silicon sand.
Please let me know later how many participants have chosen the USB stick or the paper. I bet 90% will choose the USB stick…
Good luck with the study day.
Answered by
ing. Rik Hostyn
Electronics ICT
Doorniksesteenweg 145 8500 Kortrijk
http://www.vives.be
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