Tip o’ the Day: Paper or Paper with Post-Consumer Materials? : amystodghill

Tip o’ the Day: Paper or Paper with Post-Consumer Materials?

By Amy Stodghill • June 29, 2007

Paper, paper, paper. It's everywhere. Even though it is easily recycled, a lot of paper evades the recycling bin and winds up in the landfills.

Everyday items — toilet paper, facial tissue, napkins, paper towels, and even books and magazines — can be made from recycled paper and can include post-consumer materials.

Key words to look for are recycled content, post-consumer materials, processed chlorine free. According to the Environmental Paper Network, recycled paper is a paper product that contains a percentage of post-consumer material and/or recycled fiber. Post-consumer material includes reused end products generated by consumers that have been diverted from the waste stream. Processed Chlorine Free is recycled paper in which the recycled content is unbleached or is bleached without chlorine.

Look for products with higher recycled or post-consumer content. The higher the recycled content, and the higher post-consumer materials used the better.

GO's Megan Prusynski has some great tips on buying recycled paper. She says when purchasing paper, the best thing to look for is:

100% Post-Consumer Waste (PCW)
Processed Chlorine Free (PCF)
Uncoated
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certified
Made by renewable energy sources (wind, geothermal, solar, etc.)
Treeless paper like bamboo, hemp and kenaf (if readily available locally)

Do your part and recycle your paper, newsprint, and magazines/catalogs, and look for paper goods with post-consumer recycled content. Or go a step further and opt for the non-paper alternative, such as cloth napkins, dish rags or handkerchiefs.

Amy says: I often take my laptop to a cafe with internet access. Even though I usually take my own mug I use their napkins. A lot of the smaller places I go to have the small, white trifold napkins. However, the big chains, like Starbucks for example, uses recycled content and post consumer materials in their paper goods. Their brown napkins are printed with, "Made from 100% recycled fibers with at least 10% post-consumer material in a bleach free process." Another retail coffee chain I frequent, Connecticut Muffin, has napkins that say "100% recycled paper, 100% bleach-free process, 90% post-consumer graded material." Of course it'd be great to not have paper napkins at all, but unless we all start carrying around our own cloth napkins, restaurants will continue to provide 'em. Until then providing a better alternative is better for the consumer and the environment.

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