Yesterday, April 14, 2010, I was very fortunate to have an eye-opening behind the scenes tour of the Marcal paper factory in Northern New Jersey. It was a lovely day outside as well.
I was very surprised when I arrived at the factory. I would have thought it would have been much bigger and more “industrial” looking. Instead I was greeted by a quaint old brick building. Honestly I prefer the look of this factory compared to those monsterous eye sores like some factories are.
Here is the toilet paper that just got chopped by these scary looking blades. I think these blades would put Ginsu knives to shame. Ha Ha.
If a family of four could switch to recycled paper products they could save two trees per year, or about 17 trees in 10 years. I know you are thinking that two trees doesn’t sound like much, but look at it this way. There are 10 units in my condo building. If we all switched to 100% recycled paper products for 1 year we’d save about 20 trees. There are 40 building in our complex. If everyone did that we could save 80 trees per year. There are two condo developments next to where I live. If those two joined in the effort we could save 240 trees in ONE YEAR!
Two trees might not sound like much but if you sit there and do the math and think about your friends, family, neighbors, employer and other companies switching to 100% paper products those two trees really add up – and quickly!
If everyone in the United States would switch to 100% recycled paper products for just one year we could save 123,522,000 trees! That is enough trees to fill an area the size of 23 Manhattans! WOW!!!
The average person uses 50 pounds of paper products per year. That means for my family of four we use 200 pounds of paper products per year. Wow. That really gets you thinking.
Marcal Small Steps products are also very affordable, unlike other products made from recycled materials which are actually more expensive then the non-recycled products.
Marcal Small Steps will be launching a brand new web site in about a week. Their new site will feature a lot of great information about recycling, taking care of our environment, educational materials that will be free to download (great for class rooms and home schoolers too!) and much more. Their web site is www.MarcalSmallSteps.com.
I have an amazing experience. Not only did I meet lovely bloggers like Jenn from In Jennie’s Kitchen, Nicole from Mom Trends, Kimberly from Mom in the City and Nikki from Euphoria Luv, to name a few (sorry for not mentioning everyone – it’s not intentional ♥), but it really opened my eyes to the importance of recycling and using products that are made from recycled materials.
Thank you Marcal and to the other lovely bloggers who shared the say with me for a most wonderful afternoon! ♥
To learn more about Marcal Small Steps visit http://www.marcalsmallsteps.com/. You can also follow them on Twitter at @MarcalSmallStep and on Facebook (CLICK HERE). There you can see more photos from our tour yesterday. See if you can find me. LOL! I tried to cover up those pesky gray hairs and had a wee bit of a color “issue” and my hair turned out Ronald McDonald red. Thankfully it’s only temporary and should wash out in a week or two.
If you are doing any Earth Day events you should download the FREE “Marcal-endar” from their Facebook page. It has lots of valuable information on it.
*I received free car service to/from the event as well as a goodie bag of products. There was no other compensation. The opinions expressed are my own.