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Fun Facts About Paper

People used to communicate by writing on stone, animal skins or fabrics, but today the primary ingredient in letterhead is paper. Take a break and read some interesting details about paper and you just might win that next trivia game with your friends:

• Paper was first created in China in 105 AD using a tree bark made into a pulp. It is considered one of their four greatest inventions. More...
• # Egypt had used leaves from the papyrus plant as a writing surface as far back as 5,000 B.C., but even though Greeks and Romans continued using papyrus, this was not the real beginning of paper.
• In the middle ages, Europeans changed the formula and began using cloth rags from discarded clothes to make paper.
• The world goes through around 300 million metric tons of paper each year, with the U.S. using approximately 50 million tons.
• Paper recycling started around six centuries ago! Today the world recycles about 160 million tons of paper per year.
• An average tree can yield 2,700 copies of an average daily newspaper.
• Bill Gates says he doesn't use much paper (in this fortune magazine article), however 95% of business information is still stored on paper.