Saving Paper

In the 13th century, the famous Italian traveler, Marco Polo, traveled a long way to China. During his stay in China, he saw many wonderful things. One of the things he discovered was that the Chinese used paper money. In Western countries, people did not use paper money until the 15th century. However, people in China began to use paper money in the 7th century.

A Chinese man called Cai Lun invented paper almost 2 000 years ago. He made it from wood. He took the wood from trees and made it into paper. He then put these pieces of paper together and made them into a hook.

Now paper still comes from trees. We use a lot of paper every day! If we keep on wasting so much paper, there will not be any trees left on the earth. If there are no trees, there will be no paper. Every day, people throw away about 2 800 tons of paper in our city. It takes 17 trees to make one ton of paper. This means that we are cutting nearly 48 000 trees every day. Since it takes more than 10 years for a tree to grow, we must start using less paper now. If we don't, we will not have enough time to grow more trees to take the place of those we use for paper.

So how can we save paper? We can use both sides of every piece of paper, especially when we are making notes. We can choose drinks in bottles instead of those in paper packets. We can also use cotton handkerchiefs and not paper ones. When we go shopping, we can use fewer paper bags. If the shop assistant does give us a paper bag, we can save it and reuse it later.

Everyone can help to save paper. If we all think carefully, we can help protect trees. But we should do it now, before it is too late.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Marco Polo see when he was in China in the 13th century?
2. When did people in Western countries first use paper money?
3. About how much paper is thrown away every day in our city?
4. What are the ways of saving paper?
5. What will happen if we keep on wasting paper?

(Keys.)