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Pulp fiction - recycled versus virgin

06 Apr 2009

Everyone knows that paper is made in many environmentally responsible forms and fibre sources including virgin wood and recycled fibre. But which is better from an environmental standpoint?

It’s all good
The manufacture of paper requires the use of natural resources. How much and how efficiently those resources are used depends on the production processes.

By obtaining cellulose fibre from sustainable sources, using water responsibly and making greener energy choices, paper manufacturers and their suppliers can drastically reduce the size of their environmental footprint.

The paper industry has a very unique sustainable asset, based on genuinely renewable resources and grown in well
managed forests. Because recycled fibres represent only half of our requirements, we rely heavily on new fibre to make up the balance.

Forest certification is one way of showing customers that the wood-based products they buy are made out of wood from responsibly managed forests. It aims to assure society that all of the interests, including biodiversity, waterways, creatures, commerce and other social functions, are taken care of.

Chain of Custody is a certified tracing system that tracks the path taken by the raw material to the consumer and is based on environmental management systems.

Recovering and reusing the paper fibre is an ongoing process and an equally important raw material for the paper industry.

The paper industry uses so much recovered paper that demand has almost overtaken supply and that's something that we can all work to improve.

In order to protect the environment while securing a plentiful supply of raw material, the paper industry is committed to forest certification Chain of Custody and increasing the percentage of certified fibre.

But which is better from an environmental standpoint?
It has been argued for years that the added energy consumed in the recycling process minimises any savings in the use of recycled paper versus virgin paper.

However, assessments by US organisation Environmental Defense* reveal clear environmental benefits to recycled paper.