Recycling is Eco-Friendly

Thirty years ago, recycling post-consumer paper was almost non-existent and we were cutting our forests at an alarming rate for fiber for consumer products.

Americans continue to be among the largest per capita consumers of paper products at about 700 pounds annually for every American.

Today, we have reduced the stress on our forests through intensive paper recycling programs that developed in recent years primarily due to the efforts of various environmental organizations.

Paperrecycles.org estimates that we are currently recovering about 56% of the paper products that we produce.

Year	Supply (000 tons)	Recovered (000 tons)	Recovery Rate
1993	91,538	35,460	38.70%
1994	95,718	39,691	41.50%
1995	95,971	42,189	44.00%
1996	94,529	43,076	45.60%
1997	99,557	43,989	44.20%
1998	101,183	45,076	44.60%
1999	105,316	46,818	44.50%
2000	102,810	47,311	46.00%
2001	97,395	46,996	48.30%
2002	98,949	47,645	48.20%
2003	98,016	49,255	50.30%
2004	101,882	50,287	49.30%
2005	99,613	51,272	51.50%
2006	100,665	53,314	53.00%
2007	96,751	54,323	56.10%

Recycling 54 million tons of paper means that we saved a lot of trees. But, is our recycling rate high enough? Probably not and the long term goal should be to recycle even more post-consumer wastepaper.

Our sugar cane bagasse paper and tableware products are fully recyclable. And since they are not made using tree-fiber, they have no impact on our forests.