The Truth About Renewable and Recycled Fiber

Renewing your resources is just as important as reusing your products.

The demand for paper is on the rise as well as the demand for environmentally friendly paper choices.  Recycling helps the environment, but recycled paper products are not and cannot be the only responsible paper option if we truly want to support a sustainable environment while meeting the demand for paper in North America.

There are many benefits to recycling paper such as reusing natural resources, reducing the amount of paper that goes into land fills and in some cases saving energy.  However, recycled paper has many limitations, which make it necessary for alternative earth friendly paper choices to be considered. These choices include certified renewable fiber paper.

Facts about Recycling:

• 56% of paper is recycled in the U.S today.
• There is not enough recycled fiber to meet worldwide demand of countries that have no access to recycled paper fiber.
• If North America tried to use only recycled paper fiber to make paper, we’d run out of paper in 2 months.
• Paper fiber can only be recycled 5-7 times which means that recycling alone could never fulfill the paper demand in North America.
• Only 80% of recycled fiber can actually be used for making paper.
• In order to produce recycled printing paper, the paper must go through many chemical processes such as deinking and bleaching processes.  These processes use fossil fuel energy, which is not renewable.

Non-recycled paper is often criticized, but what you may not know is that renewable paper fiber can be an earth friendly paper choice if it’s certified and comes from a paper company who practices sustainable forestry management.  The paper industry goes to great lengths to conserve our forests by planting 1.7 million trees daily to replace trees harvested. Paris’ top brands of inkjet printing paper, HP, Kodak and Printworks papers are all SFI certified which ensures that they come from a sustainable forest source.

Facts About Certified Renewable Paper Fiber

• Certified renewable fiber comes from forests that are responsibly managed to ensure replanting and regrowth of forests. A responsibly managed forest means:
  • The paper you buy does not come from an old growth forest or endangered forest.
  • More trees are planted than are harvested.  On average, 2 trees are planted for every tree harvested.
  • Wild life ecosystems created in the forest are maintained. 

• Renewable fiber is used to make other types of non-printing papers such as newsprint, packaging, cardboard etc.
• The mills that produce renewable paper fiber use renewable energy in their processes and are committed to reducing green house gases.

The simple fact is that for sustainability to work both types of paper fiber, recycled and certified renewable fiber, are needed to sustain the environment and meet the demand for paper.