March 28, 2008

Paying bills online saves forests

The trend for paying bills online these days has spread really fast, in fact this method of keeping on top your bills is not just convenient and safe, but if you think about it, can be great for the environment too.

In a recent US study it is was found that if just one household stops receiving paper bills through the post and switches to paying these online, this would save a massive twenty four square feet of forest each year. On average people will get around 6.6 pounds of paper each year, by not receiving this there would not be 171 pounds of greenhouse gases being released.

But it is the way that the paper it produced that creates the biggest scare, this same amount of bills would mean that there would be 24 feet of deforestation, 63 gallons of waste water and finally 4.5 gallons of fuel which is used in the vehicles that carry the mail to the home.

Source [Reuters]