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Online Bill Paying Saves 24 Square Feet of Forest per Year

reuters.com — The study found the average U.S. household receives about 19 bills and statements from credit card companies and banks every month and makes about seven payments by paper each month.

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  • dld0531, on 03/27/2008, -6/+46If one has access to the Internet, there is no excuse not to use online bill pay and banking...It saves trees and money!
    • PaleGhost, on 03/27/2008, -18/+4No excuse huh. I can think of one very good reason not to. It's called security and ID theft.
      • Rbstr, on 03/27/2008, -2/+20'cause they can't steal you info out of the mail.
        • Brownds, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1*****'em let them pay my bills then 8D
      • wertach, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4Been doing it for years, no prob. All of my neighbors got ripped when a mailbox thief came through last fall! It cost them many $ to straighten out! If you get ripped banking online you are a DA!
    • halobender, on 03/27/2008, -0/+13It saves me time more than anything and I don't have to buy stamps.
    • DrDash, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Actually the local power company use to CHARGE me to pay online. I actually had a few try it but I do believe all of my bills are now done online with no additional charge.
      • buyer687, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Same here, I get charged for paying my gas/electric bill online.
    • Tomchei, on 03/27/2008, -3/+4So what that we save 24 sq/ft of forests per year, I mean, it's great that we don't have to use that paper for bills and invoices but trees grow back and the way we manage them, there is no shortage practically. For every sq/ft of trees we save, junk mail will use 1.5 times as much.
      • TFGeditor, on 03/27/2008, -3/+11Not using paper doesn't "save" anything. NOBODY cuts old-growth forest for making paper. paper pulp comes from tree farms that are planted and then re-planted after harvest. So, cutting back on paper use just means fewer trees get planted.

        Story (not your comment) Dugg down as inaccurate.
        • Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Shh, don't say it so loud. Let the Green Party wackos deal with this. Some of them would be appalled that only 24 square feet were saved (roughly 1 large tree per year), others may miss the point and think it a victory. Either way it's a distraction. Let them revel in their Victory or Defeat as long as possible and hopefully delay any plans they might have to ***** up other industries.
        • freedomkeeper, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Then not using paper could theoretically cost people their jobs!
          • mos6507, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Environmental collapse will cost people their jobs as well.
      • doctechnical, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3Exactly, not using paper to "save trees" is like not eating french fries to "save potatoes".
    • ausfahrt, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Some place don't give the option but then i would say they have no excuse for that.
    • RustyJ, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2At the bank I work at, they have all sorts of problems with online billpaying, because people are either too stupid to set it up, or have a checking account that just won't play nice with our routing numbers. I agree though, It would be nice if they could better educate people on how to use online bill paying.
    • mal1964, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5I cant seem to find where to insert the checks on my laptop.
    • antdude, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4What about those who print out their online statements? :P
    • bariswheel, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2I wouldn't be so knee-jerk happy about this. Have they factored in the extra cpu cycles and power needed to run the processors and servers required for online billpay? How about the cpu cycles your computer goes through while paying the bills...? The internets aren't free. They require power, and that power most likely comes from burning coal or some other derivation of dead plants that release CO2 into the air.
    • brufleth, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2The company my car is financed through charges TEN DOLLARS per online payment. So I mail them a check. That ten dollars a check is WAY more than the actual interest on the loan. Totally ridiculous.
  • aki009, on 03/27/2008, -3/+25The other innovation is printing to PDF (with Adobe or third party products). Avoid printing receipts to paper. Keep them digitally and only print when/if needed.

    And one more is to scan your receipts, invoices, etc., and recycle the paper, at least putting the fiber back in circulation rather than gathering dust in a box somewhere.
    • schweeet, on 03/27/2008, -1/+11But always remember to back up your electronic receipts, documents etc. to another computer and/or some other backup location. Do this a couple of times each month. I back up my important documents/receipts etc. every week to two different locations. You never know when disaster strikes.
    • Densetsu, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8What's the legality of electronic vs. paper receipts for, say, taxes?

      If I scanned receipts for tax-deductible items and recycled the original, will the PDF suffice as proof?
      • Buelldozer, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4No. The IRS will ass rape you. Of course they're going to do that anyway.
      • TechCF, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I scanned and shredded all of my receipts, but I live in Norway. It will work as proof here (as it can easily be confirmed as all businesses has to have a copy too for 10 years). The contract for the purchase of our house has to be in paper with its original ink signature (I checked with a law guy).
    • poopz, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3FYI, some people still like to keep a paper trail for things. I and many others would agree that documents on a fire proof safe are more secure than files on a computer hard drive. Taking into account things like viruses, hackers, hard disk failure, general computer ***** ups, etc...
      • bacon_skoda, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2paper can last a long time if kept dry. data on floppy? minidisc? ummm...
    • pinchduck, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I have heard that the bleaching process to scrub the ink from paper to put it back in circulation is worse for the planet than harvesting trees that are grown specifically for paper. I do not know if this is true, does anyone else have any insight on this?
    • TechCF, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Everything I receive as paper is scanned and store digitally. The paper is recycled.

      I also print to PDF as much as I can. ABBYY makes it so easy
  • bamafun, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6There are lots of simple and easy ways to save time and money if people will just try them out and get in the habit of using those methods =)
  • DeskFlyer, on 03/27/2008, -4/+16Along with the online bill paying that I already do, I recently switched my bank statements to be emailed to me instead of through the snail system. If you already have online banking, check out the website to see if there is an option to do this. Every bit helps, I suppose.
    • kofijr, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1If only companies stop mailing "junk mail" am positive we could save more forest land.
    • aelias, on 03/27/2008, -2/+4It's not just banks that do this. Sprint also will do e-invoices. Most credit card companies will do it as well. I haven't written a paper check since my starter book from the bank ran out. 5 years ago. I wish I made enough money to auto-debit everything, but I can't risk getting doubled billed for something again. ***** your whole week up.
    • bacon_skoda, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1INGdirect switched me to electronic instead of paper without my approval.
      I am so *****. I hate online bank statements. saves them money, while costing me a printer, ink and paper.
      • mciampa1214, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3or you could not print them
      • manitoba98xp, on 03/28/2008, -0/+11) I doubt they did it without your approval; they asked me.
        2) Why do you hate them because they save them money? If you want to hate them, have a legitimate reason. The whole idea of electronic statements is that they don't need to be printed.
        3) You can change that setting online (and, I presume, by telephone, if you must). Just log in and click: My info and options > Statement Mailing Preferences > Please send me paper statements > Yes, go.
  • kdawg1012, on 03/27/2008, -3/+20I've been paying all of my bills on line now for almost 5 years. It's great!
    • inverselogic, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0One thing I would like to see is digital school assignments, ***** loads of paper wasted there
  • itstodd, on 03/27/2008, -8/+2Why do we have to pay Bill to save the forrest in the first place?
  • gluecode, on 03/27/2008, -2/+10I don't even know what is the price of first class stamps since five years.
  • Treshnell, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6I paid my car insurance online, hit the "Home" button, and saw this article on my Google homepage!
  • dygitaljoe, on 03/27/2008, -1/+27It still does not compare to the amount of junk mail that is still sent via postal mail. If those would stop for a week, then the entire Amazon could be saved in paper waste.

    Am I willing to sacrifice my e-mail box for ads instead of my postal mailbox? Yes, since I can at least organize it and trash it if I don't want it with a click -- and hell, if it's targeted, I'd probably respond to them.
    • girlpirate, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5whats really fun about that junk mail is how much of that junk mail postal outlets throw out. when I worked in the outlet around christmas time we would get mail bags filled with ONLY junk mail/ Unaddressed Ad mail. We would get about 100x more than we would need even if we had been putting the junk mail into the P.O boxes. it was ridiculous. I cant say that all outlets do it...its probably really illegal but ALL of our customers asked us to not stick it into their boxes. recycling it as soon as we got it saved everyone time.
    • triskele, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Now if we could only unsubscribe from junk mail mailing lists as easily as most junk e-mail mailing lists.
      • bacon_skoda, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4This was just up in congress.
        USPS lobbied to oppose this opt-out of junk mail.
      • wattersm, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1You can but it costs $1.

        http://www.junkbusters.com/junkmail.html

        One of the easiest ways to cut down on junk mail is to put a promotional block on your credit file, the only mail I get now is local sales flyers and bills which I'm slowly converting over to electronic.
    • bariswheel, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1You can do two things that make you feel good about paper junk mail.

      Sign up with earthclassmail.com that scans all your mail and emails them to you, OR sends them to you if you need the hardcopy. You can label certain mail as SPAM by the way. Fun.

      OR

      Grab those free return mail envelopes, stick the brochure that comes with the ***** credit card offer in there and send it back to their environmentally irresponsible selves. You can also print hundreds of goatse imags and send them in every time, or something equally disgusting, that'll get their attention.

      I ***** hate junk mail with a passion.
  • diggit83, on 03/27/2008, -8/+2Yet another reason to LOATHE each and every person who refers to themselves as "Computer Illiterate"
  • zacharytelschow, on 03/27/2008, -1/+120.08 trees = 24 square feet of forest?
    • 11oops, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2A forest isn't only trees. It also includes undergrowth around the tree as well as logging trails along the edges and throughout the forest.
    • girlpirate, on 03/27/2008, -2/+40.08 really ***** big trees.
  • Fractl, on 03/27/2008, -4/+3"By switching to electronic bills...the average American household would...save 0.08 trees..."
    "The survey...said it would also mean avoiding the deforestation of 24 square feet of forest..."

    So 8% of a tree = 24 sqft of forest? One tree takes up 300 square feet?!
    • jhshukla, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6yup. even with 10-foot radius (which is small IMO).
  • wilf_brim, on 03/27/2008, -2/+5My 12 month experiment has convinced me that I can do without paper. Next month I'm going to start dumping the paper bills. Save some trees, save room in the house, and make myself safer from identity theft.
  • Otto, on 03/27/2008, -1/+14I use online payments because it's more convenient, not because it saves trees.

    Most paper nowadays includes some recycled materials, and virtually all paper is made from trees grown specifically for the purpose. Paper companies are not stupid, they plan ahead decades into the future for their supplies. We've been growing trees just for paper for over a century now.
    • girlpirate, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1I went with online billing out of laziness and mistrust towards Canada Post. If I can't even GET my bills how can I pay them?saving trees is just an added bonus.
      When I worked at a postal outlet I sent myself a letter while at work (boredom FTW). that was 6 months ago. the main sorting center is 4 blocks from my house. I have yet to see this letter. apparently the letter carriers can only find us to bring us junk mail and mail for people who havent lived here in years. one time we got a Final Notice in the mail. the next week we got the bill to which the Final Notice was referring. The week after that we got the Past Due Notices. that was special.
    • prometheanspark, on 03/27/2008, -0/+6Yep, forests are a 100% renewable resource, and actually if we cut back dramatically in our use of paper and lumber we'd probably see paper companies selling their forests to developers and farmers.

      Now the energy used in turning the tree into paper, then shipping it as mail, is far less renewable and more a reason to avoid the need to mail tons of paper rather than use the internet to send information around. 'Save a tree' is so 10 years ago...
  • wastedfish, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2What an insignificant amount haha.
  • ricksite, on 03/27/2008, -2/+22I save a lot of time by paying bills online. Unfortunately I use the extra time to cut down trees. :(
    • FlyingSpaghetti, on 03/27/2008, -0/+7I take it many of the bills you pay online were for flannel shirts and beard trimmers.
    • WermerSkoch, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5He's a lumberjack, and he's okay.
  • dustin32, on 03/27/2008, -4/+16Horrible title. Should be more like "Online Bill Paying Saves 24 Square Feet of Forest per Year PER HOUSEHOLD." Much more convincing...
    • Muncher, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Agreed. I think the area of my desk is about 12 square feet, so I didn't find that number very impressive...
    • tdogg241, on 03/27/2008, -0/+8My first thought was "that's it!?"
  • MattDell, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6That's PER PERSON or household, right?
  • Konrad9, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6Uh... pretty much all paper used is from forests grown specifically for paper.
    Not really saving much.
    • Mehster, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3You are cutting out all the middlemen too! This not only saves trees but the gas needed to transport the trees and the energy/man hours it takes to convert it into usable paper, print it out, and finally transport it to your house.
      • Konrad9, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Hadn't considered that, but it is true. Good point.
  • chrisinsocalif, on 03/27/2008, -6/+9Most our paper comes from tree farms, not forests. So who really cares.
    • mousky, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Exactly. Further more and more paper includes recycled content, reducing demand for trees.
  • alibaig413, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3thats it???
  • wminkstein, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1if we could some how figure out a way to make every receipt electronic instead of printed, I wonder how many trees that would save.
  • jjive, on 03/27/2008, -2/+2But what if your home steam generator is run off of chopped wood?
  • seldon21, on 03/27/2008, -1/+6This is all fine and dandy but they need to stop charging me extra for paying online. And start charging people who receive paper bills!
  • Allibaster, on 03/27/2008, -2/+6What kind of unit is 24 sq ft of forest?
  • andreyx108, on 03/27/2008, -4/+0yeah thats cool, companies should leave only online and phone options to pay bills :)
  • lindasue, on 03/27/2008, -3/+4My ex-husband once told me that the only reason I liked to have my bills paid automatically out of my checking account was because I was lazy. Yes, too lazy to get out my checkbook and pay them the "right" way.
    • halogoggles, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2I see why he is an ex.
    • Tateohitika, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0I'm "lazy", too. If I have to pay by check via mail, for some reason, I am very slow at it... But, if I can "remind" myself to pay on-line or have it auto-withdrawn, I will gladly do it - on time, even! The friggen stamps alone are a hassle. I can never remember what the current price is and so I have all these random "cent" stamps - 33cent, 35cent, 37cent, 41cent stamps, and never enough 1cent, 2cent stamps... Thank goodness for the "Forever" stamp that we have now... RE: Your ex - geez, control-freak much? The "Right" way... LOL
  • IceSabre, on 03/27/2008, -2/+5Companies not paying for forms, postage, ink, printers, etc saves them money. If they passed these savings along in some way rather than just being greedy, more people would have an incentive to use online bill paying thus saving trees.

    Runs along the same lines as charging people to collect recyclable material. What incentive is there? Most people are too selfish or too shortsighted to do something about the environment but will recognize cost savings.
  • socketman, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Dang it are you saying that if I am doing online bill pay I am contributing to those massive forest fires that are a direct result the forests being too protected and overgrown?

    That sucks. Too bad I am too lazy to change my ways back to paper. We'll just have to let the fires burn.... :(
  • bobthebuilder25, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3... while persistent bombardment with credit card offers saves a negative 50 sq. ft. of forest per year. Uh-oh!
  • NonLeftistDiggr, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2I have 7 different accounts of various types with 4 different institutions, the junk mail we get completely drowns out the amount of mail I get from my accounts (I guess I do online mostly already).

    Junk mail is crap (stupid statement of the day). Why is it allowed to exist? I don't care how many jobs may be lost in the printing/paper business, it's ridiculous... especially with all the green stuff becoming so hip yet we still get 50lbs worth of junk mail in a year. How can all the politicians sucking the teet of the green fad dry ignore this pinnacle of waste?
  • naterpoke, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2saves 24 square feet of forest that would be used to specifically to make paper
  • dupswapdrop, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2If you use billpay watch them real close they started taking 13 to 16 days to transfer my payments! The money was transfered from my account to the billpay service then they sat on my money for 13 to 16 days making all my bills late. And guess what you can't do anything about because they are based out of London. So now I use cash and money orders only to pay my bills. Billpay is a scam!
  • marcus1060, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1And whats more, for every account I switched over to paperless banking RBC donated $10 to some tree saving place.
  • djAnakin, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3I haven't paid a paper bill in years. When I got married, I converted my wife to all online billpay.
  • calroot, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1The next step is to stop junk mail to help reduce the amount of printing and paper even further. Find out more information and register here:
    http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm
  • shaba1, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2and ATT does the opposite for their 100-some page iPhone bills...sad
  • nwelshans, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Sign of the time. As an early adopter of online bill pay I welcomed it any chance I could provided the business used some form of security for the transactions. However, back in the day, companies used to give you incentives like "here is $10 for using online bill pay" Now, they just say "it saves trees" but ***** your incentive to do it. Not acknowledging the fact that it saves them money in processing themselves or if they pay for another company to process their bills.
  • LOVEANDEQUALITY, on 03/27/2008, -2/+0NEAT!
  • freedomkeeper, on 03/27/2008, -2/+0I'd save a lot more if they quit sending me a that junk mail!
  • weoh, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2Aren't paper trees grown on tree farms? And I thought people chopped down trees in the amazon to make room for more food farms because of growing populations.
  • freedomkeeper, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1I'd save a lot more if the would just stop sending all that junk mail.
  • VashTSPD, on 03/27/2008, -3/+1http://www.therainforestsite.com/

    Clicking the green button supposedly saves 11.4 sq. feet of rain forest, and you can click it every day.

    +1 Karma
    • freedomkeeper, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1What a whacked out ***** hippie site. GMAB!
    • Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Thanks for the link, I don't get enough of that ***** filling my e-mail's inbox every day. Let me guess, you had to forward that to 12 people before Tuesday or your bad karma would cause your mother to lose her big toe to syphilis, or some ***** like that. A noble effort, but don't bother me again with it unless it'll make my dick 3" larger in a week and burn 20 pound of fat with all the free beer I can drink.
  • Etobian, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1The reason some companies charge extra for online payment, or don't have it at all, is because online payments significantly reduce income derived from late fees and default interest.
  • Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4Quote: ...shows one household ditching paper statements for Web transactions would save 24 square feet of forest a year.

    I'm not digging this math, How big are these trees their using? The average farmed tree (8 years old) provides about 60 Reams of 8½" x 11" 24# paper. That's approximately 30,000 sheets. They further claim the average household gets 19 Bills or statements each month. Lets assume 4 pages to each (seems pretty common for statements), 1 Sheet worth for the #10 Envelope, 1 Sheet for the #9 return envelope that may be inclosed, and what the hell 1 full sheet for the ½" stamp. That's 79 Sheets of paper a month. 12 Months in a year... Hmm, we're up to 948. Seems we're missing 29,000 pages somewhere.
    Wait these trees they're using are only 4" tall and sparsely planted. Now it's a significant statistic, in no way something that was randomly pulled out their asses to make a point. Clearly they understand the paper industry better than the paper industry does, because, let's face it, it's hard to get grant money if you admit to falsifying data.

    Now let's take a cheap shot at their second claim that paying bills online save 4.5 Gallons of gas a year consumed in mail delivery. Apparently if my electric bill isn't on route to my home, the mail man says "***** it" and doesn't even come down my street. Right, even unionized postal employees get fired for that. They go down every street even if there's no mail in their truck. How would they know I don't have outgoing mail if they don't check? Seriously people, anyone who buys this *****, KILL YOURSELF. Do the rest of us a ***** favor and swallow a few bullets, alright.
    • mousky, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1This assumes that the trees used in making paper are from clear cut operations, when that is not true. Most paper comes from quick growth trees that are selectively cut on tree farms. Many of those wood lots you see in farmers fields are tree farms.
      • Vlatro, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1Excellent point, I've only ever frequented 1 tree farm (worked there for a few summers in my school years). That was indeed clear cut. In I fact asked about that and was told by the owner that the bulk of the cost in production was the actual harvesting of the wood for processing (processing was done off site by their customer), and that hacking them to the ground and replanting in 8 year cycles was by far the most cost efficient way to go. Granted this was on a significantly large plot of land. I would imagine smaller operations may use other methods as supplemental income in addition to other crops. And those smaller operations likely contribute the lion's share of overall pulp collected.
        But the real point here is that they offer a lot of numbers that lend to their cause without providing any information on how those numbers were obtained. And my point on the Gas expense is irrefutable. A testament to their "Ideology above Truth" mentality in a supposedly scientific study.
  • h0ser, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1if they used hemp for paper they'd be saving much more.
  • melonhedd, on 03/27/2008, -1/+2Saves them from what?
  • GeorgeTirebiter, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Yeah, and the government is using those 24 square feet (and an additional 7 acres) printing money on their printing presses.
  • skyz, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2i am into it - in five minutes everything is paid - and i have proof of when i paid - and it is all stored online - and if there were a problem it is my bank's responsibility to fix it - i haven't written a check in years -
    • ScottDaMan, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1My credit card gives me rewards for going paperless
  • jmnewhart, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0Many companies still send you statements via snail mail regardless of the fact that you pay exclusively online. Imagine how many more trees we would save if they stopped doing that. I have a printer. I can print my own hard copy from home if I have the inclination. Save snail mail for that 5 bucks my grandma sends me every year for my birthday, at least until I get around to teaching her to send e-cards and set her up a paypal account.
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