here have been many positive changes since we began promoting "recycled paper" in 1989. Today most fine paper mills offers some recycled alternatives, and the paper and print industry bias against these products has been largely overcome. Consumers, who are willing to ask for, or search a little harder for them, can now find environmental alternatives in most paper grades and uses, from personal stationery and greeting cards to business and printing papers and even boxes and packaging.

The introduction of so many new "recycled papers" and the minimal government standards to market paper as "recycled”, can make it difficult to be sure our purchasing has real impact. Certainly, not all recycled papers are the same. Recycled content, for example, can be as low as 30%, and many of these minimal standard recycled papers are still bleached with chlorine, making their overall environmental benefit questionable. (click on Standards and Logos for more on this).

In North America over 115 million metric tons* of paper and paperboard are manufactured each year and about 90% of that is consumed domestically.. About 16 million tons or fine printing and writing paper (40%) is recovered each year. Approximately 2 million tons of this is made into new fine paper for domestic consumption.*

Happily rates of recovery and production of recycled paper have increased dramatically since 1990. However many barriers to continued change still exist within the industry. Many logging, paper manufacturing and distribution companies are owned by the same parent conglomerates. With heavy investment in infrastructure to extract wood from forests for example, or to continue using chlorine as the primary bleaching agent, there is economic dis-incentive for distributors to support and promote alternative products. This leaves development and promotion of tree-free or chlorine free paper alternatives in the hands of smaller “environmental” companies and economics of scale ( in production, marketing and distribution) make it harder for these products to be priced competitively and gain footholds in the marketplace.

Two notable exceptions where major producers have attempted to market “environmental” papers are International Papers, Unity DP and Domtar Papers “Weeds”. Unity was a 100% recycled, chlorine free copy paper and Weeds was a tree-free paper made from sugar cane and hemp. Both of these papers received national marketing but were sadly discontinued after a short trial period because % return on investment required by large corporations was not met quickly enough. This emphasizes the need for continued consumer demand and SUPPORT of truly alternative products to continue to move the industry in positive directions.

There is little doubt that alternative fibre sources, (flax, hemp, kenaf wheat straw etc) will become more utilized in the future, but how much forest is destroyed for paper making before that change occurs is an open question. 25% of the global wood harvest goes specifically to making pulp** and global demand in the pulp, paper and publishing sector is forecast to increase by 77% between 1995 and 2020. ***

British Columbia (where Paper Choice lives) is home to a quarter of the world’s remaining temperate rain forest. 90% of the logging done in B.C is in ancient forests*** and over 40% of all trees cut are used in paper making. ****

* AF&PA Statistical Report 2000
** Abramovitz and Mattoon, Worldwatch Paper: paper Cuts 1999
*** OECD Environmental Outlook. Paris OECD 2001
**** B.C. Ministry of Forests and Market Initiative, British Columbia 2001 .