recycled paper

Some relevant/interesting bits out of the original article on answers.com:

Standards

Every time paper is recycled, the fibers become shorter and weaker, so virgin pulp must be mixed with the used paper to provide strength. Because of the weakening, paper can only be recycled 4-6 times.^[1]

There is no universal standard for the maximum percentage of virgin pulp in recycled paper.^[2][3] Paper is available that includes anywhere from 10 to 100 percent "post-consumer" paper.^[4] The EPA mandated the use of 50% post-consumer recycled paper by the federal government, state governments that receive federal funding, and many companies that receive money from the federal government.^[5] The EPA does not regulate recycled paper used outside of the government; it only sets a minimum guideline.^[2] The UK also does not have any legal standards, only non-mandatory guidelines instituted by a variety of different organizations.^[2]

There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste.^[2] Mill broke includes paper trimmings from a virgin paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material that was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material that was discarded after actually being used by a consumer.

Environmental effects

The EIA states on its website that "a paper mill uses 40 percent less energy to make paper from recycled paper than it does to make paper from fresh lumber."^[6] The Bureau of International Recycling, BIR, said that paper recycling uses 64% less energy, a figure significantly higher than the EIA's estimate.^[7] The BIR quotes that recycling causes 35% less water pollution, and 74% less air pollution.^[7]

There are some potentially harmful chemicals used in the paper recycling process. If chlorine^[8], a highly polluting chemical, is used to bleach recycled paper, it is only needed in small amounts relative to the amount needed when making paper from virgin fiber. However, cholorine is rarely used at all in the virgin fiber manufacturing process due to its environmentally detrimental effects. Instead, substances such as hydrogen peroxide are utilized which results in the eventual production of oxygen and water when used to bleach either virgin or recycled paper fibers.

The European Union, as part of the waste hierarchy in the Waste Framework Directive, stipulates that reuse or recycling of used paper and board is preferable to disposal. When choosing between landfill and incineration of waste materials the latter option is preferred, as value is recovered from the waste. Organic materials like paper decompose within landfills into biogas, containing methane, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.^[9]

Recycling facts and figures

Internationally, about half of all recovered paper comes from converting losses - such as shavings - and unsold periodicals,^[10] approximately one third comes from household waste.^[10]

United States of America

Over half of the material used to make paper is recovered waste.^[11] Paper products are the largest component of municipal solid waste, making up more than 40% of the composition of landfills.^[12][13] In 2006 53.4 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling. ^[14]. This means that today, over 51 million tons of paper and paper products are being recovered for recycling annually, representing a 76% increase over 1990 levels. The U.S. paper industry has set a goal to recover 55 percent of all the paper consumed in the U.S. by 2012. Paper packaging recovery, specific to paper products used by the packaging industry, was responsible for about 76.6% of packaging materials recycled with more than 24 million pounds recovered in 2005 ^[15]

European Union

Paper recovery in Europe has a long history and has grown into a mature organization. The European papermakers and converters work together to meet the requirements of the European Commission and national governments. Their aim is the reduction of the environmental impact of waste during manufacturing, converting/printing, collecting, sorting and recycling processes to ensure the optimal and environmentally sound recycling of used paper and board products. In 2004, the paper recycling rate in Europe was 54.6% or 45.5 million tons.^[17]

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Recycling benefits contested: (on general recycling)

Saves energy

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Economist Steven Landsburg has suggested that the sole benefit of reducing landfill space is trumped by the energy needed and resulting pollution from the recycling process.^[3] Others, however, have calculated through life cycle assessment that producing recycled paper uses less energy and water than harvesting, pulping, processing, and transporting virgin trees.^[4] By using less recycled paper, additional energy is needed to create and maintain farmed forests until these forests are as self-sustainable as virgin forests.

Public policy analyst James V. DeLong points out that recycling is a manufacturing process and many of the methods use more energy than they save. In addition to energy usage, he notes that recycling requires capital and labor while producing some waste. These processes need to be more efficient than production from original raw material and/or traditional garbage disposal in order for recycling to be the superior method.^[5]

Saves money

The amount of money actually saved through recycling is proportional to the efficiency of the recycling program used to do it. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that the cost of recycling depends on various factors around a community that recycles, such as landfill fees and the amount of disposal that the community recycles. It states that communities start to save money when they treat recycling as a replacement for their traditional waste system rather than an add-on to it and by "redesigning their collection schedules and/or trucks."^[6]

In many cases the cost of recyclable materials also exceeds the cost of raw materials. Virgin plastic resin costs 40% less than recycled resin.^[7] Additionally, an EPA study that tracked the price of clear cullet from July 15 to August 2, 1991, found that the average cost per ton ranged from $40 to $60,^[8] while a USGS report shows that the cost per ton of raw silica sand from years 1993 to 1997 fell between $17.33 and $18.10.^[9]

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Working conditions

Critics often argue that while recycling may create jobs, they are often jobs with low wages and terrible working conditions.^[11] These jobs are sometimes considered to be make-work jobs that don't produce as much as the cost of wages to pay for those jobs. Recycling jobs have seen mention in publications listing the worst jobs to work in.^[12] In areas without many environmental regulations and/or worker protections, jobs involved in recycling such as shipbreaking can result in deplorable conditions for both workers and the surrounding communities.

Saves trees

In a 1990 recycling awareness pamphlet the EPA stated, "Every ton of paper recovered for recycling saves 17 trees from being cut down to make new paper."^[13] The British Environmental Agency agrees.^[14] The argument for saving trees has been used consistently to justify the recycling of paper. In 2005 51.5 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling.^[15]

Economist Steven Landsburg has claimed that paper recycling actually reduces tree populations. He argues that because paper companies have incentives to replenish the forests they own, large demands for paper lead to large forests. Conversely, reduced demand for paper leads to fewer "farmed" forests.^[3] Similar arguments were expressed in a 1995 article for The Free Market.^[16] (jady: how can anyone argue in such a shortsighted bs way is beyond me..)

When foresting companies cut down trees, more are planted in their place. Most paper comes from pulp forests grown specifically for paper production.^{[10][16][17][5]} The amount of timber in the U.S. has been increasing for decades^[16][17] and there is "three times more wood today than in 1920."^[10] Many environmentalists point out, however, that "farmed" forests are inferior to virgin forests in several ways. Farmed forests are less able to fix the soil as quickly as virgin forests, causing widespread soil erosion and often requiring large amounts of fertilizer to maintain while containing little tree and wild-life biodiversity compared to virgin forests.^[18]

Possible income loss and social costs

In some prosperous and many less prosperous countries in the world, the traditional job of recycling was performed by the entrepreneurial poor such as the Karung guni, the Rag and bone man, Waste picker, and junk man as parodied in Steptoe and Son and Sanford and Son. With the creation of large recycling organizations that may be profitable, either by law or economies of scale, the poor are more likely to be driven out of the recycling and the remanufacturing market. To compensate for this loss of income to the poor, a society may need to create additional forms of societal programs to help support the poor. Like the Parable of the broken window, there is a net loss to the poor and possibly the whole of a society to make recycling profitable.

Because the social support of a country is likely less than the loss of income to the poor doing recycling, there is a greater chance that the poor will come in conflict with the large recycling organizations. In Singapore, a few karang guni men have been prosecuted from attempting to steal scrap material from the green recycling bags placed outside housing units for collection. The overall efficiency of a large recycling program is based on keeping labor costs down and maximizing the throughput of recycled materials. This means fewer people can decide if certain waste is more economically reusable in its current form rather than being reprocessed. Contrasted to the recycling poor, the efficiency of their recycling may actually be higher for some materials because individuals have greater control over what is considered “waste.”

original complete article here.