Friday, January 27, 2006

 

why waste so much paper?

You can see that I am a person who hates resources being wasted. With regards to this, I wanted to mention something that I have noticed for all these days in IESE. In the cafeteria, when we go for lunch, one is supposed to take a tray and put a sheet of quality paper on the tray. On top of that, you are supposed to put your plates.
Does it look nice? Yes.
Is it necessary? Absolutely not.

Everyday, we waste at least 400 (counting at least 300 MBA students and 100 other members of IESE) sheets of papers. One sheet equals 4 A4 size sheets and is the same quality, if not better, as the one we use for printing. So, it is equivalent to 1600 sheets of A4 size paper every day. A picture would explain it better, here you go:





























The rational behind wasting these sheets, I was told, is to make the tray look nice and keep the tray clean if you spill something on it. But guess what, the trays are washed in the dishwasher anyway, so whats the problem if it spills on the paper or on the tray itself? It is just basically wasting tonnes of paper, just for the "feel good" effect. I definitely didn't feel good when I saw this wastage.

I don't use those sheets myself, ( it would make no sense to rant about this if I continue to use it) and I have convinced few of my friends to not use those sheets. I am yet to convince everyone. So I am actually pondering if I should start a Environmental Club and make IESE community aware about these issues with the full force of a club rather than just one individual.

Comments:
Dai,

I agree 100 persent with your thoughts and I absolutely think that it is so bad to waste anything. I think We need to do something about it.

Yogya
 
Hey Pradeep, yeah I agree with you - the waste of paper sure seems distasteful!
Btw I also had a question for you. How do current IESE students communicate? I mean is there a tool/site/forum (such as the one for the shortlisted candidates)? There are quite a few of us on the forum who have questions for current students but don't know where to go & who to ask...
 
Ashwyn,
We generally communicate using the IESE email system. We have email lists of MBA 2006, MBA 2007, Exchange students and individual sections and teams. If someone has to advertise something (eg subletting a room), they generally put the prefix SPAM in the subject and send an email to all the students in the school. I don't think these lists are available for incoming students.

When I was applying, I used to notice a group called IESE Ambassadors in the "forum". They used to reply our concerns. I think the Admissions is in the process of setting up the system to have the ambassadors from MBA 2006 and MBA 2007 access the "forum" for answering questions from candidates. I will anyway forward your comment to the Admissions to see what they are up to.
 
Thanks Pradeep, that was very helpful. I have also posted your comment on the forum (I hope you don't mind) for others to view. Lets hope the student ambassadors/adcoms look at the ambassadors group and solve our queries!
 
Pradeep,

Good point! But allow me to give another perspective to the problem.

95% of the paper is produced by managed resources, ie forest which are grown for that purpose only. This is good for the reduction of CO2 out there.

If paper usage goes down then demand for paper wood diminish and people who produce the raw resource (wood) may move onto something else which needs more fertilising stuff and less good for CO2 management.

Also to have trays less dirty may allow for less water to be used cleaning the trays (agree: to be check with kitchen staff whether these trays are not thoroughly washed whether paper tray used or not). And water is also a resource which is getting increasingly scarce, so having trays may have a beneficial impact on the environment.

Where I would agree though is to ask for the paper trays to be made of non bleached or less refined paper as the paper industry is not worldly know for its control of pollution.

Cherio,

Hervé
 
Pradeep, since u are not using it anymore, do you mind if I use also your sheet to make my try more soft?
:)

Un abrazo, u are the best!
George
 
ops.. TRAY...

George
 
Ashwyn,
I talked to Admissions. I was told that they will post a list of MBA ambassadors in the forum very soon.

--pradeep
 
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