Who knew making your own paper while talking statistics could be a fun afternoon?

If you’re anything like me, our environmental crisis has been a consistent concern dwelling in the back of your mind. If the BBC survey from 2021 is any indication, I’m not alone in this as 60% of young people expressed fear over climate change and our future. These numbers have remained steady, with a 2023 YouGov survey finding 7 out of 10 young people are worried about the environment.

And who can blame us? It seems every time we turn on the news there is another story that further paints a bleak future, with solutions seemingly far and few between. As both an avid reader and publishing student, it’s hard to balance my desire to work in the industry and be climate conscious, given the environmental cost of book and magazine production. To borrow from WordsRated, ‘when it comes to pulp and paper, book publishing is the third-largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter.’ You can see the dilemma.

Fortunately, Magazine Street was there to help explore these fears and think about solutions that go beyond just replanting trees.

In a breakout session with Sarah Lesting of LEIPA UK – an eco-friendly papermaker and supplier – we took a more optimistic approach in analysing where we are with sustainability through the form of a quiz. Did you know that in 2021 paper recycling in Europe was 71.4%? I didn’t. That’s no small feat and worth celebrating.

Then we got onto the main event – making our own paper. With mixing bowls of pulp made from a variety of recycled papers, we got hands on in transferring it to frames (literally – scooping pieces out with our hands and flattening them into the frame). Then we were given seeds and flowers to mix on top to give our papers some design.

I never got to see the final result due to the drying time required exceeding the conference, but the session achieved its goal of showing me just how easy and accessible the process could be.

To get more clinical, there is an added market and competitive benefit for publishers being more environmentally aware. Readers nowadays are more willing to support companies they know are taking the utmost care in being sustainable and lowering their carbon footprint (Baverstock and Bowen, pp. 19). Recycled paper is also far cheaper (in finance, water, energy output, etc.), so with the rising costs of paper production nowadays it is worth focusing efforts here where possible.

Admittedly, I had a low opinion of magazines due to how I thought the industry negatively impacted the environment. I blame this on the magazines you frequently see in supermarkets and corner stores – celebrity gossip, recipes, and children’s entertainment wrapped in layers of plastic, all to be thrown away in favour of tomorrow’s edition. Magazine Street challenged that for me. Inviting LEIPA to speak indicated that modern magazine publishers in the UK are trying to make a difference, and that has inspired me to investigate more into how the entire publishing industry can do their part.

Magazine Street gave me more to think about, both in terms of the magazine industry itself and how publishing in all forms can take more creative steps to be environmentally conscious in a turbulent age.

Bibliography:

Baverstock, Alison and Bowen, Susannah. 2019. How to Market Books. (6th ed.). [E-book] London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Available at: Napier Library Website: https://my.napier.ac.uk/library/finding-resources  [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Harrabin, Roger. 2021. Climate change: Young people very worried – survey. [Online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58549373 [Accessed 9 October 2023].

Magazine Street. 2023. Papercraft: Fall Deeper in Love With Print, Over and Over Again. Edinburgh. 5 October 2023.

Phillips, Owen. 2023. Young people’s climate anxiety is soaring due to lack of access to green space. [Online]. Available at: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/press-centre/2023/03/young-people-climate-anxiety-green-space-access/ [Accessed 9 October 2023].

Talbot, Dean. (2023). Impact of Book Publishing on Environment. [Online]. Available at: https://wordsrated.com/impact-of-book-publishing-on-environment/ [Accessed 9 October 2023].

Thomas, Lawrence. 2023. Book Publishing in the UK. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-research-reports/book-publishing-industry/ [Accessed 8 October 2023].

Image from: https://www.pexels.com/photo/book-on-the-grass-5833/ [Accessed 12 October 2023].