How soon will you print on recycled? - recycled paper for publishing - includes related article

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 15, 1993 by Esther Barbara D'Amico

Not too soon, with tehnical and economic factors working against any quick conversion by publishers. But the EPA may have other ideas.

Recycled paper is like the federal budget deficit: Everyone agrees it's an important issue, but no one seems to know what to do about it.

In fact, even as publishers are seeing improvements in quality, availability and even pricing of publication grades of recycled paper, magazines remain a stronghold for virgin fiber use and promise to stay that way through this decade unless outside pressure--from consumers or the government--provides impetus for change. At present, the magazine industry is watching, studying the state of supply and demand, and listening for consumer response.

Clearly the public is becoming more environmentally conscious and concerned. Statistics regarding landfills are a source of concern to most average citizens as the reality confronts them on their local levels. Consider that 80 percent of dump space is expected to close within 20 years, and about 80 percent of high-grade, printing-writing (P-W) paper, or roughly six million tons of third-class mail and magazines, is landfilled annually.

The government, too, has begun probing some of the issues surrounding recycled paper. The Environmental Protection Agency is compiling recommended revisions to its recycled paper procurement guidelines for P-W grades. At an open forum in Washington, D.C., in March, representatives from more than 30 companies and trade associations, including the Magazine Publishers of America, expressed their concerns and proposed various revisions.

MPA and paper manufacturers are aware that whatever guidelines the EPA ultimately settles on for government paper purchasing are likely to become the de facto industry standards, because there are no federal rules mandating use of recycled paper in magazine publishing. There are also no concise or uniform definitions of what constitutes recycled paper. Again, EPA's definitions will probably establish de facto standards--for better or worse.

More recycling capacity coming

A few publishers, such as Rodale Press and Time Inc., have switched their titles to coated recycled paper that contains at least 10 percent post-consumer fiber. Others, such as Mother Jones, are making incremental conversions, printing covers on recycled stock with plans to convert the rest of the magazine as soon as it is financially feasible to do so.

A trend? Consultants cautiously say it's too early to tell. More P-W recycled pulping capacity will come online by the mid-nineties, says Bill Franklin, chairman and principal at Franklin Associates, Inc., an independent consultancy based in Prairie Village, Kansas.

He predicts this will result in a "significant increase" in the use of recycled fiber in office and consumer-type paper, but adds that "though there is interest |among publishers~ in getting recycled paper, I don't think we are going to see as great a movement on the magazine side as we will in those other areas."

In 1990, only 5.8 percent of P-W paper had any recycled content. This compares with 27.8 percent for newsprint, 34.4 percent for corrugated and paperboard, and 50 percent for tissue and towel paper the same year. Experts forecast a recycled-content growth rate for P-W paper of only 9.8 percent by 2001, a slight increase when compared to newsprint, which is expected to climb 38 percent, says David Assmann of Conservatree Paper Co., a recycled paper wholesaler based in San Francisco.

Even more revealing are P-W paper statistics that show that less than 6 percent of P-W paper is recycled into any kind of paper, and less than 1 percent is made again into P-W grade, according to Assmann.

Historically, the paper industry has always recycled and made paper with some degree of pre-consumer material. By the 1940s, for instance, 37 percent of this country's paper came from pre- and post-consumer recycled material, says Assmann. By 1980, the rate fell to 19 percent, and today it is roughly at 29 percent. "Recycling is an idea whose time has come again," says Assmann.

Does it make economic sense?

While few in the industry would disagree, the depressed economy has held paper manufacturers back from making the capital expenditure needed to re-tool or purchase new equipment. De-inking facilities, the backbone of recycling operations, are multimillion-dollar ventures. Besides this, paper mills must go through extensive permitting processes to regulate contaminants and sludge from these operations. It can take several years to obtain the proper operating permits under the Clean Water Act, in addition to problems finding suitable landfill space.

"The coated market is the most difficult for recycling because of the expense involved," says John Taylor, coatings product manager at Black Clawson Co., a stock-preparation equipment manufacturer based in New York City. "It doesn't make |economic~ sense for U.S. paper-makers to go after the coated market right now. There are a lot of other grades you can put |post-consumer waste~ into first."