Introduction

Although there has been a decrease in paper consumption produced by the use of e-mail and digital documents, it still exists a great amount of paper consumption, which has been contributing to one of the most serious environmental problems nowadays: "deforestation".

The forests have an influence in the local and global climate. They moderate the air temperature gradient and maintain the atmospheric humidity levels, absorb the atmospheric carbon and renew the oxygen in the air that we breathe. The conservation of the forest resources in the river basins that gives water for irrigation, sanitary services and human consumption is an important component of the strategies of water supplying.

It's important to say that each year we loose in the world some 11.3 millions of forests hectares and in Latin America 5.6 millions hectares (area equal to the surface of Costa Rica). According to projections of experts, towards year 2025, the South Hemisphere will not have usable forests.

However, in industrialized countries there is a clear conscience about the meaning of recycling and how it can contribute to the diminution of natural resources operation rates, in addition to habits in compatible remainders handling with the care of the environment.

In Chile the problems are not smaller, there also exist less native forests. In fact, at the arrival of the spaniards our country had 25 million hectares forests; that is to say, a 45 percent of the territory was covered by native forest. In the forties an estimate became of 16 million hectares, and at the moment the number only reaches to little more than 13 million.

In Antofagasta, the problems generated by paper consumption become the generation of remainders and the proliferation of many illegal rubbish dumps in different points of the city. In addition, there is a lack of conscience in the community about environmental care and absence of a policy that approaches the problem in a more effective way.

In the sector called La Chimba, located in the north of our city, exists the only authorized place were there are being deposited daily 600 tons of rubbish, approximately 1.4 kg by people. The dimension of this rubbish dump borders 25 square km, delimited by a perimetral closing. The municipality has planned the installation of a garbage dump that will be located in km 12, way to the city of Calama, beginning its operations in year 2005.

In our university about 8 tons of sweepings take place every week, approximately 50% of this amount are remainders of paper and cardboard. Its destiny is the dump located in La Chimba.

For these reasons, it has been decided to propose this project and to promote a collective conscience about the importance of recycling for the future professionals and making our university an example towards the community of Antofagasta when innovating and developing the handling of paper remainders.