Paper Recycling

Paper recycling and environmental benefits as companies continue to go green.

Paper Recycling
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Some 53.4 percent of all paper manufactured in the United States is recovered for recycling, according to recent statistics released by the American Forest and Paper Association (AFPA), and all of that paper is utilized. It is estimated that an additional 40 percent of post-consumer fiber in the United States is food contact, tissue, or sanitary products that cannot be recycled or is in rural, low-density population areas that makes recovery too costly or energy demanding.
The latter is the reason that paper recycling rates are higher in Europe than in the United States. Europe's dense population centers are much closer to each other, making paper recovery much more energy efficient and less expensive. In the United States, the issues associated with food contact, tissue, and sanitary products are unlikely to be resolved, but the paper industry continues to look for new and innovative ways to recover more paper from rural areas in cost-effective, energy-efficient ways.
Currently, about 30 percent of paper recovered in the United States is bought by manufacturers and shipped offshore to countries such as China. Rather than being faced with a surplus of recovered fiber, U.S. manufacturers are faced with a market where sources of quality fiber for recycling are limited.
Environmental Benefits
Contrary to popular belief, the key environmental benefit of recycling is not in saving trees, which are among the few truly renewable resources on earth, but in diverting as much usable paper from landfills as possible. By diverting usable fiber from landfills, not only is a valuable raw material reclaimed, but greenhouse gas emissions are also reduced.
The ultimate goal of paper recycling should be to increase fiber recovery to the maximum possible in the United States, and then to re-use all fiber that is recovered.
Many believe the best way to accomplish this goal is to mandate increasingly higher levels of post-consumer content across all grades of paper. The assumption is that if a certain amount of recycled content is good, then a higher percentage of recycled content must always be better. A number of environmental paper calculators have been developed to compare the environmental benefits of recycled content papers with those of paper made with virgin fiber, and these can be valuable tools.
However, they do not adequately reflect the fact that as increasingly higher percentages of recycled content are used, the resulting environmental benefits diminish significantly, especially for whiter, more highly processed paper grades such as coated magazine and catalog papers. To make a valid comparison, a thorough lifecycle analysis must consider the differences, especially in greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste, which result from collecting, transporting, cleaning, and processing post-consumer fiber versus virgin fiber.
Greenhouse Gas EmissionsThe vehicles used to collect widely-dispersed post-consumer waste and deliver it to recycling mills travel far greater distances, burn much more fossil fuel, and emit more greenhouse gases than equipment used to harvest and deliver trees from working forests that are in much closer proximity to virgin paper mills.
In a tight market, where 30 percent of recovered paper is shipped offshore, it becomes increasingly difficult for a coated paper mill to find the very clean, high-quality recovered fiber required to manufacture products such as magazines and catalogs.
In today's market, a coated paper mill that uses increasingly higher percentages of post-consumer fiber must go greater distances to find high-quality recovered paper, resulting in even more fossil fuel use/greenhouse gas emissions to ship recovered fiber longer distances back to the mill. In addition, due to the types of inks typically used to print on high-quality papers, they require more fossil fuel energy for de-inking before they can be recycled.
Even though manufacturing virgin paper requires more energy than recycled content paper, it relies heavily on greenhouse gas-neutral biofuels while most of the energy used to produce recycled content papers comes from fossil fuels that result in higher greenhouse gas emissions.Solid WasteThe recycling process generates far more solid waste (from inks, fillers, degraded fiber, and contaminants) than the virgin process, which uses the entire tree and recycles 95-plus percent of its pulping chemicals.Yield loss is much greater per ton of recycled paper. In a typical white paper recycling plant, as much as half of a given ton of recovered fiber may be lost in screening, cleaning, de-inking, and re-pulping—and that lost fiber becomes solid waste. In the virgin process, almost none of the tree goes unused or becomes solid waste.
As a coated paper mill uses increasingly higher percentages of recovered post-consumer fiber, that mill will certainly have to use larger quantities of lower-quality fiber containing elevated levels of contaminants. The higher the level of contamination, the more chemical and solid waste is generated to process this fiber back in to usable pulp.
By forcing the use of recycled content in magazines and catalogs, valuable recovered fiber is being diverted from uses in other paper products such as corrugated boxes and brown paper bags where solid waste and energy consumption for cleaning and processing the fiber is less.
ReMixing It Up
Time Inc., the National Recycling Coalition, and Verso Paper got together to establish ReMix—Recycling Magazines is Excellent—a public education campaign to raise awareness that magazines and catalogs can be recycled with other paper products in residential recycling programs.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 2 million tons of magazines are produced each year in the United States, but only about 32 percent are recycled. Research shows that Americans support recycling but are often uncertain about what can be recycled. ReMix is designed to let them know that magazines and catalogs can be recycled right along with newspapers.
Since the beginning of the program in 2004, recycling of magazines and catalogs is up 17 percent in Boston and 11 percent in Prince George's County, Md., with additional results due soon from Portland, Ore., and Milwaukee. ReMix plans to launch in New York City in 2007.
Industry-Sponsored Programs
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and Magazine Publisher Association (MPA) also promote recycling. The DMA's Recycle Please initiative encourages consumers to recycle catalogs and mixed paper. This summer, DMA member companies, which represent many of the country's leading brands, began adding "Recycle Please" logos to their catalogs and direct-mail pieces. The logo directs consumers to the association's Web site—www.recycleplease.org—where they can find information, helpful tips, and resources on recycling.
The MPA's Please Recycle This Magazine public education campaign lets readers know that magazines can and should be recycled. The centerpiece of the campaign is a pair of "Please Recycle" logos that MPA will be working with its members to prominently display in every issue of their magazines. The key objective of both campaigns is to increase public awareness that magazines, catalogs, and direct mail can be recycled in the vast majority of communities in the United States and, thereby, increase the percentage of used magazines that are recycled.
Craig Liska is Verso Paper's vice president of sustainability. He is responsible for integrating Verso Paper's sustainability philosophy of balancing environmental, social, and economic values into decisions affecting all aspects of the business. Mr. Liska also worked for Motorola as the corporate director for international environment, health, and safety. Prior he had 10 years of experience with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois EPA.
Xerox To Fund Green, Nano, Imaging Fellowships at MIT
In an effort to drive further research in engineering fields such as green innovation, imaging, and smart document technology, nanotechnology, and MEMS, Xerox Corp. is providing a $1 million grant to fund fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The three-year grant will fund the creation of The Xerox Foundation Fellowship Program at MIT's School of Engineering and support multiple master's and doctoral degree candidates annually. This is part of Xerox's ongoing support of open innovation and collaborative research worldwide.
The Xerox Fellows will focus on:
Green Processes and Technologies—Research will focus on understanding environmental impacts over the entire product lifecycle, from raw materials to use by customers and disposal, and on making products and services more environmentally friendly.Imaging and Smart Documents—Research will range from the recognition and enhancement of image content to smart document applications such as document summarization, natural language generation, and machine translation.Nanotechnology and Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)—Research includes micro/nanotechnology projects, which pose exciting possibilities for new devices and applications.Winners in Strathmore Competition from Coast to Coast
Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. announced the winners of the second quarter Strathmore Letterhead Competition.
Thinkso Creative, a New York City design firm and designer Brett Taylor won the bronze award for Hagin Investment Management's new corporate identity. The printer was M Press, also in Manhattan. The paper used was Strathmore writing, ultimate white, wove, 28 lb. and 70 text.
Mohawk well exceeded the number of entries expected for the first round of judging in the Strathmore Letterhead Competition launched in April. Submissions consisted of both national and international companies of varying industries and sizes.
"We were impressed to see how quickly we began receiving entries after the contest was first announced. It's exciting for us to see how much work is being done on Strathmore, and the overall level and quality of work we received was strong," said Laura Shore, senior vice president, communications, Mohawk fine papers.
Winning pieces will be posted on www.strathmore.com and have been entered into the Mohawk Show.
Additionally, AdamsMorioka, the Beverly Hills-based design firm known for its high-level work ranging from corporate identities and print campaigns to film, video, and animation won the gold award for its own stationery. The printer was Los Angeles-based Coast Litho.
Dallas-based David Carter Design and designers Claire Sneau and Donna Aldridge won the silver award for Urban Design Group. The printer was Texas Graphic Resources, also of Dallas.
Designers are eligible to receive one of three quarterly cash prizes; $150 bronze, $300 silver, or $500 gold. In addition, an annual grand prize of $1,000 is chosen from the four grand prize winners for that year. Prizes are also awarded to the first 25 designers who enter each quarter. These prizes are based on the grade submitted and change each quarter.
Printers receive a special prize for every five entries submitted. In addition, a distinctive award is given to the designer, printer, and client for each winning entry.
author: By Craig Liska




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