U.S. Encouraging More Use of Recycled Paper

With waste paper estimated to make up 30% to 40% of the nation’s waste, the federal government and many state and local agencies are taking steps to encourage greater use of recycled paper, reports Philip A. Alpert, president of the Paper Stock Institute of America.

“Paper stock,” he explains, is the industry term for waste paper that has been recovered, processed and packaged to technical specifications by industry dealer-processors. It is used by paper and board mills in the manufacture of new products.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will soon issue new guidelines to help increase purchase of paper made with recycled raw materials by federal government agencies,” said Alpert, a partner with National Fiber Supply Co. in Chicago.

He said six states have already established such purchasing policies: California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Oregon. Numerous corporations, boards of education and private companies have implemented similar programs, he added.

“This is a positive way to increase paper recycling levels on a regular, sustained basis,” Alpert said. “Policies like these help create demand for recyclable fiber by the nation’s paper mills and paperboard manufacturers. This will eventually result in the recovery of additional tonnages of paper from the solid waste stream.”

Exported Abroad

About 20 million short tons of waste paper are now recovered each year for recycling, about 3.5 million short tons of which are exported to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and other countries with scarce forest resources, he said.

“This helps offset our country’s serious balance of trade and balance of payments positions,” he said.

Despite the favorable trends, however, Alpert cautions against what he claims are “attempts to establish waste recovery programs which bypass recycling operations that have been in existence for decades.

“Such measures as mandatory waste paper collection systems, legislation to control the flow of this material to designated facilities, and government programs to fund waste paper recovery activities that compete unnecessarily with private industry could have disastrous effects on paper recycling.

“They could,” he asserts, “force the closing of many taxpaying recycling companies and force thousands of their employees out of work.”

Recycling activities that duplicate operations of established recycling companies, or compete with them for the limited markets for recovered waste paper, hamper waste control efforts, he says.

“Vast additional tonnages of recovered waste paper will be generated, and unless demand by manufacturers to utilize this potential raw material exists, it must eventually be dumped in scarce landfills,” he says.

Alpert points out that “according to a recent industry study, while paper and paperboard use by Americans will increase from the current 77 million short tons to almost 100 million short tons annually by 1995, the waste paper recycling rate is expected to remain about the same.”

The Paper Stock Institute is a division of the National Assn. of Recycling Industries.