On the waterfront - 2002 Paper Recycling Supplement - US has scrap paper surplus, and rest of the world is catching up in paper consumption

Recycling Today, Oct, 2002 by Brian Taylor

Americans still read plenty of newspapers, magazines and office memos, and similarly go through packaged products at a pace unequaled in the rest of the world.

The result is that the U.S. can be considered a nation with a scrap paper surplus. While the U.S. still maintains a sizeable forest products industry--making paper grades ranging from corrugated containers to glossy printer stocks--it also consumes so much paper that it generates more scrap than is needed by domestic paper mills.

Americans have long supported a considerable magazine and newspaper industry and relied on packaged products, but people in other parts of the world are in the process of catching up with this consumption pattern.

More than 2 billion people live in east and southern Asia in nations such as China and India, where the standard of living is advancing steadily. In that part of the world--as well as in Central and South America--the information explosion (and the accompanying newspapers, magazines and office memos) is in an earlier stage, and manufacturers and retailers offering packaged products are still enjoying abundant growth.

One can debate the merits of the rest of the world emulating America's patterns of consumption, but the trend is difficult to refute. Like Americans in the first half of the 20th century, citizens in other countries are hungry both for information (much of it printed) and consumer goods (many of them packaged in boxes).

The result is that a staggering volume of new paper and box-making capacity is coming online. Currently, many of those mills need scrap paper as feedstock, providing a waiting export market for U.S. recyclers.

Recyclers often complain about business conditions, but one reason to smile is the exportability of their product. Their peers in many other industries would be overjoyed to find an export market as hungry as the one that greets recyclers at U.S. overseas ports.

As noted by Cellmark Recycling's Jimmy Derrico in a presentation summarized in this supplement, most nations of the world will accept U.S. scrap paper. In a competitive global economy, it is comforting to sell a product that is fueling economic growth all over the world.