Students urge the government to save trees by using lighter paper

The government could save the equivalent of 9,000 trees a year if it switched to a lightweight paper for photocopying, research by green-minded university students suggests.

The government and many offices use a paper setting of 80 grams per square metre. But environmental concern group Greenwoods, at the University of Hong Kong, said that by switching to paper that was just 10 grams lighter, the government would save an impressive 531 tonnes of paper each year.

'We have to do something to reduce our use of paper. Using 70 gram paper would not affect printing quality but would be more environmentally friendly, as the same number of trees could produce more paper,' said Kane Wong Hung-hing, who heads Greenwoods.

Pun Tsz-chung, a second-year student at Chinese University who took part in the research, said the research group could not discern any difference in the printing quality when 70 gram paper was used instead of 80 gram paper.

According to the internationally accepted standard, production of one tonne of paper requires 24 trees that are 12 metres tall. The government used 4,250 tonnes of photocopying paper per year on average, according to data released by the Government Logistics Department.

'If the government could use 70 gram paper instead, 531 tonnes of paper would be saved. It means about 9,000 trees would be saved' each year, Mr Wong said, adding that lighter paper was popular in Taiwan and on the mainland.