by Holly Denson-Camp
Welcome back to People, Planet, Print: Busting Recycling Myths. In this installment, we will be addressing the input potential of the recycled paper industry and how that impacts the industry’s supply of recycled stock. Don’t forget to read the previous two installments: Part 1: Recycled vs. Virgin Fiber Paper, and Part 2: Recycling Effectiveness.
MYTH: If everyone uses recycled content in their paper choices, won’t we run eventually run out of paper to recycle?
FALSE
I frequently hear this concern when customers are making the choice between a 10% recycled stock versus a 100% recycled stock. Often, they land on the 10% because “if everyone printed on 100%, we’d eventually run out of paper to recycle.” Although this has the potential to be true, we are currently nowhere near the limits of our supply of recycled paper fiber. As stated previously, 50-60% of paper is diverted to recycling streams in North America. Although this figure is very large compared to other recycling streams, it means there is still 40-50% of post-consumer paper that ends up in landfill or waste-to-energy streams. The United States also currently exports recycled fiber overseas, exporting 35% of its recycled paper fiber in 2022! Each of these factors shows that there is considerable room to grow, and there should not be any concern over a lack of supply of recycled paper.
When choosing the percentage of post-consumer waste to include in your stock, you should be mindful of how that will work with your design as recycled content can have implications for the image quality and stiffness of the sheet. However, these quirks can be used to your design’s advantage and better highlight your commitment to sustainable printing materials!
Even though virgin fiber paper will always make up at least a small part of the paper industry, encouraging its usage does not create the incentives needed to upscale our paper recycling infrastructure. We want recycled paper to be “pulled through the system” by consumer demand for paper with recycled content. If we encourage the increasing use of virgin fiber paper, we are instead incentivizing investment in harvesting forests, not paper recovery and recycling.
As an organization that works with paper products, we realize it is part of our responsibility to help dispel some of these harmful myths and ensure that consumers are educated about the impact of their purchasing choices and recycling habits. If you’re looking to reduce the impact of your printed products, over the course of these blog posts we’ve learned that:
- Switching to a stock with recycled content is the number one way to make the largest reduction in associated emissions, waste, chemical use, and water use.
- You should always make sure to research the recycling effectiveness of the materials you purchase, noting that plastic recycling is a more complex and less effective process than paper recycling.
- There is more than enough recovered paper material to sufficiently supply our needs for recycled stock – don’t be afraid to request a higher percentage PCW, we have enough to go around!
Reach out to Mitchell today to learn more about our recycled stock options and what you can do to reduce your environmental impact.
