Paper In The Environment

Today, 90% of paper pulp is made of wood. Paper production accounts for about 35% of felled trees and represents 1.2% of the world's total economic output. Recycling one ton of newsprint saves about 1 ton of wood while recycling 1 ton of printing or copier paper saves slightly more than 2 tons of wood. This is because kraft pulping requires twice as much wood since it removes lignin to produce higher quality fibres than mechanical pulping processes.

Relating tons of paper recycled to the number of trees not cut is meaningless, since tree size varies tremendously and is the major factor in how much paper can be made from how many trees. Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 16% of world pulp production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more generation forests account for the balance. Most pulp mill operators practice reforestation to ensure a continuing supply of trees.

The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification and the Forest Stewardship Council certify paper made from trees harvested according to guidelines meant to ensure good forestry practices. It has been estimated that recycling half the world’s paper would avoid the harvesting of 20 million acres of forestland.

This image below is of waste paper collected for recycling in Italy

What is today's landfill use of paper before recycling?

As it stands around 35% out of all landfill is of municipal solid waste by weight is paper and paper products.

What is the impact regarding water and air pollution?

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has found that recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper. Pulp mills can be sources of both air and water pollution, especially if they are producing bleached pulp. Modern mills produce considerably less pollution than those of a few decades ago. Recycling paper decreases the demand for virgin pulp and thus reduces the overall amount of air and water pollution associated with paper manufacture.

Some Stats...

As both paper recovery and paper consumption rose in 2010, the volume of paper estimated to be going to landfills remained near an all-time low of approximately 20 million short tons. This is about half the volume of paper that went to landfills in the year 2000.

Official Numbers...

	Paper Recovered (million tons)	Paper Landfilled (million tons)
1993	35.5	38.4
1994	39.7	37.9
1995	42.2	36.3
1996	43.1	34.4
1997	44.0	37.3
1998	45.1	38.4
1999	46.8	41.4
2000	47.3	40.0
2001	47.0	36.6
2002	47.6	37.7
2003	49.3	36.6
2004	50.2	39.9
2005	51.3	37.8
2006	53.3	36.9
2007	54.3	32.9
2008	51.8	28.1
2009	50.0	19.2
2010	51.5	20.3

(Originally Posted 20/03 Re-posted 26/03 due to an error in the display)