Recycling & End of Life

The market for recovered fiber is strong, and is expected to grow by 35 percent between 2008 and 2018. This market is driven not by government mandates, but by economics. Recovered fiber can serve as a low-cost alternative to new wood fiber in many products. Today well over half the fiber used for papermaking around the world is recovered fiber.

Because recovering paper makes economic sense, it happens at a high rate. Globally, about 55 percent of paper is recovered, and some countries have significantly higher recovery rates: Europe, 71 percent; Japan, 70 percent; and the United States, 64 percent. By contrast, the U.S. EPA reports that plastics are recovered in the United States at only a 9 percent rate and electronics at 25 percent.

“Wood fiber recovery in the U.S. is a significant environmental success story. Our Fiber Sourcing and Recycling teams continue to build upon that success by working with generators and suppliers to identify and capture new sources of recyclable materials.”

Recycling & Overall Trends

In 2010, we set our Vision 2020 goal to increase recovery of OCC by 15 percent. We contribute to increased fiber recovery rates by expanding our internal recovered fiber capacity, working with suppliers and acquiring new sources of materials for recovery. In doing so, we also divert additional types of paper and packaging materials from landfills.