Paperless society?

The push towards the paperless office is strong, the push for paperless classrooms is strong, and the push for paperless life is weak.

However, the office and the classroom are nowhere near paperless. In the office environment, there are still things that must be done on paper, financial statements, annual reports, contracts, and the like. Also, having a hard copy of a report or letter, or other important type of paper is important, because what if the computers go down? Or what if the file gets deleted? In the classroom environment, professors are putting their material online for the students to retrieve and print out. Students turn work in in hard copy, paper form.

Are we really in a paperless society?

Far from it. We've just reduced the amount of paper used, or diverted the costs of printing to the end-user, instead of the supplier.