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Waste reduction fast facts: Paper

Garbage and recycling  ›  Recycle at school  ›  Fast facts about waste reduction  ›  Paper

This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.

Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.

• In 2003, paper and paperboard accounted for 35 percent of the total materials discarded in the United States. This is up from 29 percent in 2000. –EPA, “Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2003 Facts and Figures,” 2003
  http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/pubs/msw05rpt.pdf
• In the metro region, paper accounted for 22 percent of the total materials discarded in 2002 (14 percent was recyclable, while 8 percent was non-recyclable). –Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Waste Composition Study, 2002 (draft)
• One ton of paper requires the use of 98 tons of various resources. –Natural Capitalism; Paul Hawken, Amory and L. Hunter; Lovin Little Brown & Co.; September 1999
  www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid20.php
• In the United States, we use enough office paper each year to build a 10-foot-high wall that’s 6,815 miles long, or two and a half times the distance from New York to Los Angeles. –Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, “Recycling Facts and Figures,” PUBL CE-163, 2002
  www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/aw/wm/publications/
• In 2002, United States per capita consumption of paper and paperboard was 677 pounds (308 kg). This is down from 728 pounds (331 kg) in 2000. –World Resources Institute, (with information from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), 2003
  earthtrends.wri.org/index.cfm
• Demand for paper and paperboard products is growing rapidly. Globally, paper consumption increased by a factor of 20 in the 20th century and has more than tripled over the past 30 years. –World Resource Institute, “From Forests to Floorboards: Trends in Industrial Roundwood Production and Consumption,” Emily Matthews, Adapted from PAGE/Forests 2000
  http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.cfm?theme=9&fid=6
• Paper consumption in the industrialized countries is currently about 440 pounds per capita per year in Western Europe compared to more than 660 pounds per capita year in North America. However, total paper and paperboard consumption in Asia already exceeds that in Europe, and is projected to grow nearly 4 percent per year until 2010. This rate of increase would make the region the biggest paper consumer in the world. –World Resource Institute, “From Forests to Floorboards: Trends in Industrial Roundwood Production and Consumption,” Emily Matthews, Adapted from PAGE/Forests 2000
  http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.cfm?theme=9&fid=6
• Industrialized nations, with 20 percent of the world’s population, consume 87 percent of the world’s printing and writing paper. –A Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry: Striving for Environmental and Social Sustainability, Ratified at The Environmental Paper Summit, Sonoma County, California, November 20, 2000; Source: Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme, Keynote Address UNEP’s 7^th International High Level Seminar on Cleaner Production, 29-30 April 2002
• Global production in the pulp, paper and publishing sector is expected to increase by 77 percent from 1995 to 2020. –A Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry: Striving for Environmental and Social Sustainability, Ratified at The Environmental Paper Summit, Sonoma County, California, November 20, 2000; Source: OECD Environmental Outlook (Paris: OECD, 2001), p. 215
• Every year, the U.S. catalog industry mails some 19.5 billion catalogs, or 71 for every man, woman and child - producing and disposing 3.6 million tons of paper in 2000. –Environmental Defense, May 2002
  www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentid=2040
• In the U.S. we have lost 95 percent of our old growth forests. –World Resources Institute, “The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge,” 1997; US Forest Service, 1997 Resource Planning Act Assessment, Final Statistics, July 2000
• More than 90 percent of the printing and writing paper made in the U.S. is from virgin tree fiber. –Worldwatch Institute, “Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape,” Abromovits & Mattoon, 1999
• Seventy-five percent of a tree harvested for paper does not wind up as paper product. –NRDC, “The Upstream Benefits: Reducing Pollution and the Use of Virgin Resources,” February 1997
  www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/recyc/chap1.asp
• In 1998, 24 percent of globally harvested wood not used for fuel was used to produce paper and paperboard products. –World Resource Institute, “From Forests to Floorboards: Trends in Industrial Roundwood Production and Consumption,” Emily Matthews, Adapted from PAGE/Forests 2000
  http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.cfm?theme=9&fid=6
• Worldwide, just 10 percent of all paper pulp comes from non-wood sources; in the U.S. the figure is less than one percent. –Emagazine, “The Paper Chase,” Jim Motavalli, (Accessed 8/05)
  http://www.emagazine.com/view/?1735&src=
• Industrial wood plantations occupy only about 3 percent of global forest area, but provide about 22 percent of the world’s non-fuel wood supply. –World Resource Institute, “From Forests to Floorboards: Trends in Industrial Roundwood Production and Consumption,” Emily Matthews, Adapted from PAGE/Forests 2000
  http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.cfm?theme=9&fid=6
• Old-growth and secondary-growth forests produce 78 percent of all lumber, pulp and other industrial wood, forest plantations provide the rest (22 percent). –World Resources Institute, Gregory Mock, “How Much Do We Consume?” June 2000
• The virgin pulp and paper industry is the largest industrial process water user in the U.S. Approximately Annually, 1,551 billion gallons of wastewater are generated by pulp, paper, and paperboard manufacturers. –NRDC, “The Upstream Benefits: Reducing Pollution and the Use of Virgin Resources,” February 1997
  www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/recyc/chap1.asp
• According to the Federal Network on Sustainability, the U.S. pulp and paper industry is the second largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. –Sustainable Industries Journal, “Recycling’s Pushed ‘Reduce, Reuse’ Out of Equation,” commentary by Debra Taevs, June 2005
• One ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees. –Conservatree, September 2002
  www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml
• One ton of 100 percent virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees. –Conservatree, September 2002
  www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml
• One ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36). –Conservatree, September 2002
  www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml
• One ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for news magazines and most catalogs) uses nearly eight trees (7.68). –Conservatree, September 2002
  www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml
• One tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets. –Conservatree, September 2002
  http://www.conservatree.com/learn/Enviro_Issues/TreeStats.shtml
• While paper can be recycled using fewer than a dozen nonhazardous chemicals and bleaching solutions, most virgin pulp and paper is made using literally hundreds of highly corrosive and hazardous chemicals, including chlorine. –Natural Resources Defense Council, “The Upstream Benefits: Reducing Pollution and the Use of Virgin Resources,” February 1997
  www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/recyc/chap1.asp
• Recycling newsprint results in almost 40 percent reduction in total energy demand compared with virgin fiber use. –Energy Implications Of Integrated Solid Waste Management Systems, prepared for the New York State Energy Research And Development Authority (Boston: Tellus Institute, 1992)
• Producing recycled paper requires about 60 percent of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp. –Environmental Protection Agency, 2002
  www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/wstewise/wrr/factoid.htm
• Manufacturing one ton of office and computer paper with recycled paper stock can save between 3,000 and 4,000 kilowatt-hours more than the same ton of paper made with virgin wood products. –Environmental Protection Agency, 2002
  www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/wstewise/wrr/factoid.htm
• Recycling one ton of newspaper saves the equivalent of 100 gallons of gasoline. –Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, “Recycling Facts and Figures,” PUBL CE-163, 2002
  www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/aw/wm/publications/
• Producing recycled paper causes 74 percent less air pollution, 35 percent less water pollution, and creates 5 times the number of jobs than producing virgin paper. –Center for a New American Dream, May 2001
  www.newdream.org/procure/factoids.html
• Recycling one ton of newspaper is equivalent to not releasing 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. –Oregon DEQ, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
  www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/rethinkrecyc/rethinkrecyc.html
• Recovered paper currently accounts for 37.7 percent of the paper industry’s fiber needs, up appreciably from 26.6 percent in 1990. –American Forest and Paper Association, 2002
• Americans set aside 47.6 million tons of paper to be recycled in 2002, an increase of 18.5 million tons, or 64 percent, since 1990. –American Forest and Paper Association, 2002
• The national recovery rate for corrugated cardboard approached 74 percent in 2002. –American Forest and Paper Association, 2002
• By recycling more than 405,000 tons of paper in 2002, residents in the Portland metro region saved 7.7 million trees from being harvested, which is the equivalent of the number of trees in almost eight Forest Parks. –Metro, Internal Document, 2003
• Regionally, 72 percent of all recyclable paper in the Portland metro area was recovered. The most common recycled paper is newspaper. –Metro, Internal Document, 2005
• Almost 85 percent of recycled residential paper (including magazines, newspapers and junk mail) can now be used by two of Oregon’s paper mills in Oregon City and Newberg to create newsprint. –Metro, Internal Document, 2005
• The Metro Region recycled 436,983 tons of paper in 2003, which is the equivalent of stacking paper on a football field to the height of 2/3 mile. The U.S. recycled 49.3 millions tons of paper in 2003, which would be a football field stacked with paper to a height of 67 miles. –Metro, Internal Document, 2005

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Sustainable living

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