Office Paper Recycling: A Success Story

Office paper recycling seems so habitual now that it is easy to forget that it is a fifteen year success story.

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The National Office Paper Recycling Project was a 1990 initiative of the United States Conference of Mayors in cooperation with both corporate and public interest groups to increase both awareness of recycling issues and actual recycling rates for the paper products used in the workplace on a daily basis.

The plan was guided by a two-fold strategy.

First, the Mayors developed a standardize office paper recycling program for offices across the United States. The plan recognized that diverse types of paper from newsprint to corrugated boxes to computer paper and more flow in and out of offices on a daily basis. Their office paper recycling guide was broad enough to cover all the paper types potentially in the office waste stream.

The second strategy was to improve the business partnership between recyclers in the printing industry and all the paper producing workplaces in a particular city. Offices could plan to either transport their recycled products to, or have them picked up, by the appropriate paper recycling center.

It is difficult to call the plan anything other than a success story. The American Forest & Paper Association recently released some statistics that show almost a jump from 29.9% recycling rate in 1993 to a 49.1% rate in 2004.

Office Paper Recycling Rates 1993-2004

• 1993 - 29.9%
• 1994 - 38.4%
• 1995 - 39.3%
• 1996 - 40.7%
• 1997 - 40.4%
• 1998 - 41.1%
• 1999 - 43.4%
• 2000 - 47.8%
• 2001 - 47.6%
• 2002 - 46.5%
• 2003 - 48.3%
• 2004 - 49.1%

Source: American Forest & Paper Association. Recovered Paper Statistical Highlights 2005.

One big reason for the program's success can be attributed to the Conference of Mayors keeping on top of recycling trends and incorporating them into their program.

Current efforts to improve recycling rates focus on improving the standards for post-consumer waste (PCW) content in paper. They support a 30% PCW standard for the most common office paper types. Paper products come in a variety of PCW mixes from 0%-100%.

For comparative purposes, Office Depot announced on May 11, 2005 that they achieved a "26.9% post consumer waste (PCW) recycled content in the paper it used at its nearly 1,000 North American Copy & Print Centers". Assuming that the 26.9% PCW rate is standard across the industry, reason suggests that paper recycling technology and the industries it supports are not too far behind the Conference of Mayors standard.

© 2006. Patricia A. Michaels