blogcutter

It seems paper is a scarce commodity these days. Not just toilet paper or paper towels but any kind of paper. This was brought home to me by this e-mail message I got recently:

Dear subscriber, We invite you to read the Totally British magazine November 2021 edition in digital version. Due to a shortage of paper in Canada, the magazine will not be able to be printed.

This was a bit of a shocker, given that my home town used to be pretty much the pulp and paper capital of the world. E.B. Eddy. White Swan. Supply chain issues, you say? If we still had a proper domestic paper industry, that shouldn't be much of a problem.

My first thought was that I hope I at least get a credit of some sort for this bait-and-switch product. I mean, I paid for a paper copy of my magazine!

To be honest, I'd have thought that there would be LESS demand for paper now than in the past. I have filing cabinets at home that are sitting empty. Offices often don't even have paper files. We don't get phonebooks - white and yellow pages - delivered to us every year these days. More and more people are ditching cheques in favour of e-transfers and other paperless payment systems. And even the most ardent scrapbookers are increasingly opting for digital ways of managing their memorabilia. Admittedly there has probably been a run on cardboard boxes and other packaging materials as people have been forced into online shopping from distant merchants, but still...

I still prefer paper for books, magazines and newspapers. I put out my black box every two weeks and the city workers or contractees collect the contents, supposedly to recycle them. And by the way, is waste paper any more detrimental to the environment than e-waste? I suspect that if anything, the reverse would be true. The book as a format has prevailed for many centuries. Can we say the same about floppy discs or eight-track tapes? Are they biodegradable? To what extent can we convert or recycle electronic formats or somehow give them useful second and third and fourth lives?

Nowadays, it seems it's politically incorrect to want paper ANYTHING, be it bags, tableware, personal care products, payment methods or books. Just how did paper come
to be so demonized, anyway?

Remember the paper dresses of the sixties? I haven't seen those lately, except maybe at clinics. Which brings me to one of the big pluses of paper - it's hygienic for patients who are ill or have fragile immune systems or live in large institutional settings where germs are particularly prevalent. It's also potentially compostable and biodegradable, though obviously you want to tailor the type of paper you use to the purpose for which it is to be used - sometimes the very virtue of paper is that it IS stable, at least when compared to rapidly-obsolescent electronic formats like diskettes, or websites that are here today, gone today, not to mention being easily compromised. Personally, I would think that e-waste would be a much more pressing problem than paper waste.

Very few employers these days are willing to give you a real-live paycheque. Instead, everything is done by electronic transfer. My union recently sent me a letter commanding me to go online and give them my e-mail address. No mention of what folks are supposed to do if they don't happen to HAVE one. Besides, while e-mail may be better for some things, e-mails are frankly not as exciting to receive as hand-written (or even machine-written) notes sent via good old Canada Post. Travellers' cheques have pretty much fallen by the wayside. And while I'm still able to use my chequebook to pay bills, I find I'm bombarded with requests to switch to e-billing. Financial institutions even have the gall to charge you extra for the privilege of paying your bills that way.

Then there's books, magazines and other reading material. Actually I DO have an e-reader, but I still resent it when books are available only in proprietary e-book formats or when magazines decide to convert to electronic-only format. Charge a little more for the paper and postage if you must, but please don't force me to switch or disenfranchise folks who don't have access to a computer or don't wish to use one for whatever reason.

"Paper" is NOT a four-letter word!