The Case for Recycled Paper
Recycled paper is not necessarily the first thing you think about when designing a brochure or filling up your printer. And let's be honest, you have bigger fish to fry than fretting over what type of paper to use. That doesn’t mean you shouldn't uninformed. That’s where I come in. As a designer, paper products are a very important ingredient to my creations and I‘ve become increasingly interested in finding sustainable options. In this article, I would like to address a couple misconceptions when looking for paper.
Virgin vs. Recycled Paper
When printing products, you will have two main types of paper types to choose from: virgin fiber [made from cutting down trees] and post-consumer recycled fiber [made from recycling programs]. Both of these products create an environmental footprint. The environmental paper network has produced a study outlining the impact created when using these papers. For every one ton of virgin fibers created 24 trees, 33 million BTUs of energy, 5,601 pounds of greenhouse gases, 22,853 gallons of water, and 1,922 pounds of solid waste is created. For every one ton of 100% recycled fibers created 0 trees, 22 million BTUs of energy, 3,533 pounds of greenhouse gases, 11,635 gallons of water, and 1,171 pounds of solid waste is created.
As you can see, recycled paper has a lower environmental footprint making it more cost-effective, but not necessarily cheaper. Generally speaking, recycled paper is more expensive due to more steps being involved in its creation process. As time goes on though, prices will go down as more investment and tech goes into advancing its maturity.
Recycled Paper is environmentally more costly than virgin Paper
“The waste paper Americans generate each year could build a 12ft. high wall from Seattle to New York. ”
There is an idea out there that says recycled paper products are actually worse for the environment than its virgin cousin because it is not a renewable resource. This does have some truth to it. Yes, you do need virgin fibers to continue to have recycled paper, I don’t dispute that. The problem I do have with this idea is it’s very one-sided and narrow-minded. As it stands right now, the waste paper that Americans generate each year could build a 12ft. high wall from Seattle to NY. That's a huge opportunity to save trees and reuse a large waste stream. Seeing that paper fibers can be reused up to 7 times before they break down, those trees can go up to 7 times farther than before. If we got this type of return on each tree, it would help reduce their numbers needed for the future. Another big piece of this puzzle is finding alternative fibers to create new paper. One of the most promising ones right now is bamboo which has great advantages over wood - its faster growing and can be regrown from existing roots preventing soil loss. If these and other promising materials could be introduced into our existing paper stream, it could have a very positive effect on our tree needs in the future.
To have the best possible environmental outline we not only need to look at what type of paper we use, but its full life cycle. I like to call this approach the full-circle effect. For this to work, we need ask some questions like- Where did the materials come from? Was it responsibly forested? Can this paper be reused again after its life? All of these questions play a role in the paper you decide to use and the environmental footprint you want to leave. So why not take steps to be proactive, help your customers, the environment, and our future - go recycled whenever possible.
Like to dive deeper into this subject? Check out this article. Paperwork: Comparing Recycled to Virgin Paper