Recycled paper. What does it mean, exactly? There are 3 basic kinds of commercial recycled paper.
- First is mill broke, or mill waste. This is just all the excess created by the papermaking and fabrication process.
- Next is pre-consumer waste, which is paper that goes back to the pulper, having never been sold.
- Third is the result of our collective recycling efforts. Newsprint, telephone books, magazines, office waste, and what we bring to the curb. This is post consumer waste. 55% of this goes to landfill. Most of the rest of it, gets shipped to Asia. Very little of post consumer waste goes back into the US consumer stream.
Very few paper mills like to deal with the de-inking process and the difficulty in creating a consistently colored and textured sheet.
Post consumer recycled woodpulp paper is never as strong or chemically consistent as virgin pulp. (This is because of the length of the actual fiber, which is fairly short.)
The mills that have specialized in post consumer recycled paper have gotten pretty good at making handsome, specialty paper. However, because of the volatility in the paper industry, with companies buying and selling each other, and the corresponding downsizing, a number of post consumer specialty mills have closed in the past 10 years. (A few were in bankruptcy last year.)
That is why it is so important to create consumer demand for post consumer recycled paper. It’s really important to create consistent, dependable supply and recycling streams if we are going to create good steward business practices.
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