Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at 
Which has a larger carbon footprint:
An office that uses a photocopier or an office that uses carbon paper?
How much difference does it make if you're using the carbon paper in an electric typewriter as opposed to a manual one?
How much less is the environmental impact from being able to proofread on the screen before printing out and making your copies (which I'm assuming is itself lower impact than printing multiple copies ... but maybe I'm wrong)?
How do we pin down the relevant impacts of the manufacture of the computer and printer and photocopier compared to those of the manufacture of the typewriter and carbon paper?
And what of dittos?
(You young people will need to do a little research to figure out what the heck I'm talking about. Perhaps on your way to doing it you can get offa my lawn!)
Environment
Technology
Comments
Use pdfs and stay paperless.
Posted by: Lab Lemming | March 6, 2010 11:36 PM
I wonder about these things fairly regularly. Which of the many available options for things is the most "environmentally responsible"? And who decides such things?
My vote would probably be paper in a typewriter was was better for the environment. paper is a renewable resource, if managed properly, it is pretty straightforward to harvest paper responsibly. Just about everything that is inside of this little plastic-lined box of rare metals that I am using to write this comment is not at all 'environmentally responsible'. That said, I will continue to use my computer to read your blog...
One that has gotten me for a while is the option of using a paper plate vs. using a plastic reusable plate at restaurants... In one case you are using trees to create a (possibly) biodegradable renewable resource (paper) and on the other you are using a non-biodegradable oil-based product that can be used many times, but will be thrown away at some point. I tend to thing that the paper plate option (if it is a biodegradable version - ie not plastic lined) is better than using the plastic. But what about the fact that the plastic plates are already in use and will be used regardless of whether or not you yourself are using it... ahh .. the vicious loop of questions surrounding these issues....
Ah... the trials that come with trying to be 'environmentally responsible'...
Posted by: Kevin | March 6, 2010 11:54 PM
What about mimeograph?
Posted by: John McKay | March 7, 2010 1:09 AM
"How do we pin down the relevant impacts of the manufacture of the computer and printer and photocopier compared to those of the manufacture of the typewriter and carbon paper?"
theoretically the 'carbon impact' is already measured by the price that the consumer pays when they buy the typewriter or copier. every participant in the supply chain, from the iron mine to the shipping company to the factory and its workers to the retailer, will need to use energy to do their job. They pay an energy company for that energy, then pass on the cost to the person 'downstream' on the supply chain. Ultimately, when you go into Office Depot and buy a copier or typewriter, a certain amount of that sticker price is going to pay for all the energy used in the manufacture of the product. And since the 'CO2 footprint' of a product comes mostly from the energy used to make it and ship it, the 'energy footprint' is basically the 'CO2 footprint'. So if something costs less, it theoretically took less energy to make it, and thus it has a lower CO2 footprint.
The problem is when you have distorted prices, IE in China, they dont have to pay the 'real cost' of energy production, with all the slave labor and pollution-dumping and subsidies and distorted currency and everything else. You can get arrested there for posting a blog, so what would happen if you tried to calculate carbon footprints of a factory part owned by the Red Army? Until China can get environmental and labor laws and human rights laws, and be like a civilized country, we will never know the carbon footprint of anything that comes out of it.
Posted by: decora | March 7, 2010 7:54 AM
oops i meant the People's Liberation Army, not the Red Army.
Posted by: decora | March 7, 2010 7:56 AM
Unquestionably the electric typewriter + carbon-paper and/or dittos is lower carbon-impact than the computer + printer.
Sure, in theory you could carefully proofread before printing, but people don't. (I work in the tech support department of a college of business, and one of our jobs is to distribute print cartridges and paper as needed. One might conclude that people get a little shot of orgasmic pleasure from clicking "print". The usage is truly staggering, and it all winds up in the recycle.)
Posted by: george.w | March 7, 2010 8:24 AM
To kick off this post, I present to you some humor about which I would never had known if it had not been for my eldest son. In a recent episode of the cartoon "Phineas and Ferb" the evil scientist builds a device to increase his "carbon footprint" by stamping a giant foot made entirely of carbon paper across the land. Hilarity ensues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzFZ6arzGqE
(Evil scientist stuff starts at about the 2:40 point)
Posted by: Mystyk | March 7, 2010 8:49 AM
The monster footprint of digital technology
by Kris De Decker
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730
Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/business/global/26rare.html
Posted by: ET | March 7, 2010 11:15 AM
And how do both compare to the office that uses monks to copy everything in script with illuminations? Carbon paper isn't that far removed from that, and has about the same chance of being used. Get real.
Posted by: RSG | March 7, 2010 12:20 PM
Way too young for the typewriter conundrum... got my first computer when I was four.
But! I'm actually working on a story like this right now. With Kindles and newspapers instead of typewriters and computers.... same idea I suppose?
For anyone lucky enough to have journal access, a good paper to check out is:
Screening environmental life cycle assessment of printed, internet-based and tablet e-paper newspaper, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Moberg yr:2007 vol:34 pg:419 -429
Enjoy!
Posted by: Colin | March 7, 2010 8:55 PM
Carbon paper has lower impact, because after the first time using it you'll give up in frustration and give oral exams instead.
(I took grade school exams in the mimeograph era. I notice I still sort of perk up mentally if I see purple typewriting. Some kind of adaptive threat reaction, I think.)
Posted by: padraig | March 8, 2010 10:11 AM
"get offa my lawn!"
While you're at it, tell 'em to stop playing their crappy music so loud.
;)
Posted by: padraig | March 8, 2010 10:13 AM
I still have an old-school non-electric typewriter in the basement. The chance of me ever using it again? 0% I would love to smell some mimeograph paper again though, been wondering if there's a nostalgia market for a mimeograph candle (it would be that lovely purple shade). I think the heart of this problem really lies in the fact that nowadays we're replacing the use of a relatively renewable resource (paper) with increased use of electricity, which is being produced in many non-renewable ways.
Posted by: Rob Monkey | March 8, 2010 11:05 AM
Hey Rob-Monkey - I'll pay shipping to take that typewriter off your hands!
Actually, the amount of paper used would probably be greater using the manual (or electric) typewriter. At least a part of copyediting is done in silico now - reducing the number of printed copies, but with a typewriter, you would need to retype multiple pages - especially for a major revision.
Carbon-copies only work so far - it's hard to get more than about 6 at a time. Then you go to ditto's (mmm - that old-school butanol smell!) And a typewriter uses its own fair amount of resources in being produced, so I'd be willing to bet that they are about even overall.
George W says "Sure, in theory you could carefully proofread before printing, but people don't.", which means they get to retype it - using the same amount of paper again...
With a manual typewriter, you *can't* proofread before printing - some people do (even if many don't) with computers, so - reduced paper usage. (BTW - you might add a quota to your student's accounts on how much paper they can use - make them pay by the page after (say) 500, and they'll reduce their printing!)
Posted by: Eric | March 8, 2010 12:43 PM
I recommend an exploration of the history of xerography. This is a technology that almost didn't get commercialized, because the marketers at Xerox had a hard time imagining how it would be used. They initially thought of it as a simple "replacement" for existing duplicating systems like carbon paper and mimeography, and weren't impressed by the size of that market. It didn't occur to them that making copying clean and easy would result in a huge increase in the absolute numbers of copies being made. The advent of photocopying was bad, bad news for the forests of the world.
Posted by: bob koepp | March 8, 2010 1:59 PM
Padraig is right. Carbon paper has the lowest foot print of all. Once it's made, nothing more happens with it, everyone is using the copier.
Posted by: Mylasticus | March 8, 2010 4:20 PM
This seems like an incomplete word-problem to me; it's trying to work out the costs of document production and reproduction with several technologies, but that's only the numerator. We also need to know the denominator, some measure of work-done or knowledge-transmitted. But that is often subjective, and is even more vulnerable to new technologies changing what we want than the numerator was.
The older technologies were almost certainly lower cost in materials and fossil energy per page, because those things were more expensive. But, correspondingly, typing and mimeographing depended on skilled, low-paid clerks and secretaries to get everything done.
Posted by: Chloe Lewis | March 8, 2010 4:58 PM
Since I'm imagining being a child and sniffing ditto fluid, I'll ask:
Who has a lesser transportation carbon footprint: the person (in suburbia) with a new hybrid vehicle, who commutes to work and blithely makes additional trips (shopping, grandma, whatever) at various other times of day, evening, or weekend, or the person with a 12-year-old middling-fuel-efficient car, who can barely afford it, skimps on oil changes, and needs to fill the gas tank 3, maybe 4, times a year?
For printing, I'd imagine the most resource efficient, albeit only scalable to a moderate sized to large office, would be laser printer, where access to the printer was controlled by a very crabby operator, thus throttling casual use.
Posted by: Uncle Glenny | March 9, 2010 3:13 AM
Hey Eric, sorry, had to do some of that "work" crap I hear so much about ;) If you really would want it, drop me a line at robshaw81_at_gmail_dot_com, I'll weigh it up and give you an idea how much it might cost to ship it (it's in its own snazzy metal briefcase so you can carry your giant anachronism when you travel!)
Chloe, you make a good point about the efficiency of technology, although my brain couldn't help but dredge up that Onion classic "Internet stoppage causes mass productivity."
Posted by: Rob Monkey | March 9, 2010 10:56 AM