Wood Pulp, Water Pollution, and Advertising
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Abstract
In 1973 the total amount of money expended on advertising in the United States approximated $25 billion. Although the annual volume of television advertising has demonstrated an astonishing increase since 1950, and although radio advertising, particularly on local stations, has recovered substantially from the initial impact of television, expenditures in the broadcast media still represent slightly less than 25 percent of all advertising monies. The balance is spent in an attempt to capture the public's attention by printing messages and illustrations in newspapers and periodicals, on billboards and public transit vehicles, and in direct mail to offices and residences. In addition, advertised brand name products require packaging for display and identification. Substantial amounts of paper for labels and cardboard for containers are required for this purpose, and heavier paperboard is used for the cartons in which the individual packages are shipped. Of the 61.9 million tons of paper and paperboard produced in the United States in 1973, it is a fair estimate that about 50 percent is used for advertising and for the packaging and shipping of advertised products. Thus the fortunes of the paper industry are and have long been linked to advertising. The relationship between the mounting volume of printed advertising and the increasing pollution of America's waters does not appear to have received due recognition; it is to this subject that the present article is addressed. The wood pulp and paper industry is one of the major polluters of our rivers and streams. In 1963, for example, an estimated 13.1 billion gallons of waste water were discharged from our industrial plants, and of this volume 1,900 billion gallons, or 13.7 percent, came from factories manufacturing pulp, paper, and allied products. The total waste water contained an estimated 22 billion pounds of BOD (biological oxygen demand); the share contributed by the paper industry was 5,900 billion pounds, or 26.8 percent. Settle-