BUSINESSES in the North-East are wasting £1.5bn a year by unnecessarily throwing paper away.

Research by printing and digital imaging firm Canon showed that if all the waste paper binned in the North-East was joined together it would stretch from Middlesbrough to Moscow.

Equally if the millions of reams of printer and copier paper wasted each year were piled on top of each other it would only take 30 minutes to reach the top of the Angel of the North. It said printing on both sides of paper was one way of reducing waste.