Newspapers want to be green too

Newspapers have a big green problem: to produce their main product means taking something green (a tree) and spending a lot of energy (and water, and toxic emissions) to turn it something white (paper), then spending more fuel to transport it to each city from the paper plant, then more fuel to deliver it to each household -- and then hope that it gets recycled -- albeit at a lower value point than the original white paper. Many papers have found at least partially recycled paper sources, but even that still has to be shipped in bulk and then redelivered by gas or diesel powered vehicles.

So what to do?

The Newspaper Association has a CD for sale with a roundup of tips from member newspapers: Green Ideas.

Among the ideas are ones for just lowering the energy consumption and reducing waste: thinner paper (also cheaper), managing the press runs better so that there's less immediate waste of spoiled papers off the press, switching to soybean ink (if they haven't already), and turning off lights and improving energy management in general in their buildings.

Other ideas include switching to hybrid or biodiesel delivery vehicles, cutting some long-distance deliveries out altogether (which were probably money-losers before $4 gas anyway), and offering recycling to their own customers.

Then there is replacing the print edition with an electronic edition. This hasn't gone as well, because free web sites can't seem to earn enough money to cover the nut of editorial salaries, and subscription-required sites just haven't got much traction, in the sea of free news and advertising resources. But it's a start.