The Green Paper Trail

The next time someone asks if recycling makes a difference, here's some fuel for your reply.

Business as Usual
Nearly half of the trees cut in North America are made into paper. Every year, from Washington state to Georgia, over 3.8 million acres of forest are clearcut, leaving wide swaths of stumps marking our insatiable demand. Nor does it stop at our borders; our wood pulp and virgin paper products are increasingly sourced from South America and China.

To make paper, wood is ground, pressed, dried and chlorine bleached, producing over 1,000 different organochlorines, including the carcinogen dioxin, and mercury. Deforestation destroys wildlife habitat and increases erosion and sedimentation of streams. What's more, native forests are often replaced by single-species "tree farms" with little value as habitat for native plants and animals.

Processing paper from virgin timber also requires large amounts of energy—in 2000, the pulp and paper industry contributed an estimated 9 percent of total manufacturing carbon emissions in the U.S. At the other end of its lifecycle, much of the paper we buy ends up in landfills. In 2005 the U.S. generated 246 million tons of municipal solid waste, and nearly 35 percent of this was paper.

The Good News
Paper recycling in the U.S. is on the rise, and choosing the right paper for your kitchen, bathroom or home office can help save forests and conserve energy, too. A ton of recycled paper saves 3,000 to 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity compared with producing a ton of virgin-fiber paper. Municipal recycling rates topped 32 percent in 2005, and recovered 50 percent of paper and paperboard, a 7 percent increase since 2000. Metal, glass and plastic recycling rates have remained almost unchanged, at 37, 22 and 6 percents respectively. By 2005 U.S. curbside recycling saved an equivalent of the energy used annually by nine million households.