Recycling Paper
In the ever-growing industry of ecological living, more and more people are paying attention to their habits, use and also their waste. A constantly growing number of Americans are taking steps toward preserving the environment for years to come. One of the biggest personal steps that any families and any person can take is to recycle household items. Most people can take part in their city wide recycling program that includes household plastic, metal and foam containers. Probably the most recycled household product is paper.
Paper recycling is literally recovering waste paper and remaking it into new paper products. The three categories of paper used for recycling are mill broke, pre-consumer waste and post-consumer waste. Mill broke consists of the scraps and trimmings from inside the paper manufacturing plant. This mill broke is recycled internally within the paper mill and is never part of consumer waste. Pre-consumer waste is paper that was thrown out prior to being available for consumer use. This may consist of paper trim, die clippings from die cutting of envelopes and corrugated boxes, or waste off the printing press. This is waste that has not passed through the end user. The paper that is recycled in most homes and offices is post-consumer waste. This is material that was discarded after consumers have used it. Examples of post-consumer waste are magazines, phonebooks, office copy paper and newspapers.
Waste paper can be disposed of in three different ways: burnt, buried or recycled. With the increasing shortage of additional landfills and room quickly running out in current landfills, burying it is becoming more and more of an impracticable long-term solution. Burning waste paper causes pollution to our air and therefore long-term consequences. Therefore, recycling is quickly becoming the best and most viable long-term solution for waste paper.
Recycling paper has many benefits. Recycling paper saves our forests. Since 90% of the pulp used to make paper is wood, it is important to reuse as much paper as we can to save tress. Paper constitutes at least 35% of all trees that are cut down. When one ton of newsprint is recycled it saves about 1 ton of wood. When one ton of copy paper is recycled it saves about 2 tons of wood.
Recycling paper also saves energy. There is some debate on how much energy is actually realized from recycling paper. However it is estimated to be between 40 and 64% when making paper with recycled products rather than unrecycled pulp. Some claims state that by recycling one ton of newspaper can power a three-bedroom house for one year!
Another important benefit to recycling paper is to reduce to amount of product that is going into landfills all across the United States. This is important because currently about 35% of solid waste that is going into landfills is paper. In a lot of places in Europe and the United States finding land suitable for landfills is difficult. The current landfills are getting increasingly full due to slow decomposition of materials.