To Our Readers

By ELIZABETH VALK LONG President

Most parents can recall a moment like the one David Refkin experienced the day he visited his daughter Julie's grammar-school class to talk about environmental issues. Refkin ran into tougher questions than he had expected. "One of the children asked me why TIME had to cut down so many trees to print magazines," says Refkin.

What his young questioner did not know was that Refkin spends a good deal of time thinking about the impact we have on the environment. As director of magazine-paper purchasing for all of Time Inc.'s periodicals, Refkin is also in charge of addressing environmental questions raised by the production of our magazines. One of his main goals is to increase our use of recycled paper.

During the past two years, we have begun printing TIME's Canadian edition and six of our sister publications, including ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED FOR KIDS, on paper that contains substantial amounts of recycled waste paper. This summer we will begin using recycled paper in TIME, PEOPLE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, which collectively publish more than 12 million copies a week. Within a few years, most of the 250,000 tons of paper Time Inc. uses annually to produce its magazines will be recycled stock. "In the past," says Refkin, "there simply was not enough recycled paper available to do this. But because we are such a large buyer, we were able to help create a significant supply by asking for it." A few months ago, Refkin helped dedicate a new recycling plant in Duluth, Minnesota, that will be turning out some of the pulp used in TIME. "The best part," he says, "is that this means all those tons of paper will not have to be added to landfills."

Time Inc. is seeking other ways to lighten our impact on the environment. For example, Refkin is working on a new program with our paper suppliers that will significantly reduce a troubling side effect of magazine production that has plagued publishers. To whiten magazine stock, paper plants have long used a chlorine bleaching process. In 1985 the Environmental Protection Agency discovered that this procedure produces traces of dioxin, a highly toxic chemical, in waste water at the plants. Looking for ways of solving the problem, TIME asked its mills to substitute a different bleaching process that does not produce any detectable levels of dioxin. Most of the paper in this magazine is now produced that way. We have asked our other suppliers to convert to this safer bleaching method. They are in the process of doing so. Says Refkin: "These issues are extremely important to us. We care about our impact on the environment."