twenty percent of the Amazon rain forest is already gone, with more vanishing at three times the 1994 rate; the Amazon is losing forest at a rate of 2.47 acres per second, 150 acres a minute, 214,000 acres per day, 78 million acres per year; at this rate, an area the size of Bermuda would disappear every 1.4 hours; the global rate of forest loss is nine million hectares per year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture organisation.

forests are disappearing most rapidly in Africa and Latin America; the United States uses 100 million tons of paper per year, and rising; 0.4 million tons of paper are thrown away by office workers in the US each year -- enough to build a 3.5 metre high and one metre wide wall from New York to California; 0.18 million tones of paper is recycled each year in the US, saving 1.1 million trees; according to treecycle.com, paper accounts for 40 percent of all municipal waste in the US; each pallet of recycled paper saves 17 to 20 trees, and with 30 cases per pallet, over half a tree per case is saved; recycled paper uses 55 percent less water to produce and thereby helps preserve waterways and forests; recycling and manufacturing of waste paper into recycled paper creates more jobs than the manufacture of virgin paper; the manufacturing process of recycled paper save 60 to 70 percent of the energy cost of manufacturing paper from virgin pulp; the paper industry is the third largest energy user in the US. Its reliance on chlorine intensive bleaching places this industry as the worst polluter in the world. This process produces chlorinated organic compounds (organochlorides) including dioxins, which are considered the most potent chemical toxins known.

Studies have shown that dioxins are highly carcinogenic and can lead to reduced reproductivity, cause genetic damage and accumulate in the environment, becoming more concentrated as it moves up the food chain; other pollutants from paper mills includes lead, mercury, cadmium, and pcb's.