Green Daily

It takes a lot of paper to print that beloved Elle/Home Beautiful/Men's Health/Maxim mag you get in the mail each month. And while I'm not judging (I get one, too), it's definitely not the most environmentally friendly practice.

Thankfully, many mags have switched at least in part to printing with recycled paper and post-consumer waste. But Canadian Geographic trumps them: its June "Environmental Issue" will be the first in North America to print on paper made from wheat straw.

Called "wheat sheet," the material is actually made of 40% wheat straw and 20% recycled paper. That's the good news.

The bad news?
In this case, the wheat sheet had to be imported from China, because North America doesn't have a facility that produces the stuff. Unfortunately, that kinda detracts from the whole good-for-the-environment vibe they had goin'.

However, if Canada had the money and resources to dedicate to growing wheat straw, the material could replace 80% of the newsprint used in Canada annually, drastically cutting down on the amount of forests that are destroyed to print magazines and newspapers.

via [Treehugger]