Ask Where Your Paper is From!

I am learning about this blog stuff and one thing is you have to keep it up to date. So sorry if you tuned in and it hasn’t been fresh.

There are a lot of good information sources out there on the web and from time-to-time I will help spread the word about them.

The first I’d like to mention is the Environmental Paper Network’s
The Paper Planet Blog. With posts by Papyrus, Southern Q and others, the website is a go-to place to find out about new developments with environmental paper and serious issues that could harm development of the environmental paper markets. A few weeks back The Paper Planet posted links to the April 1, Washington Post front-page article on the impacts of the paper producing boom and timber trade in China.

Right now China is ramping up exports of newsprint and coated printing papers to the US. Less than 10 years ago newsprint and coated paper trade was flowing from North America to Asia, but now that is reversing. While China does have considerable capacity to produce recycled content newsprint, virtually no capacity exists to produce recycled content papers used for commercial printing of magazines, catalogs, gloss advertising papers and the like. And that type of virgin paper is arriving in the US from China with increasing frequency. So ask where your paper is from.

Thanks to The Paper Planet blog for the nod a few weeks back concerning the start of this blog. The posting paired me with Leonardo DiCaprio as eco leaders! Hey big difference is that Leonardo can make money with his good looks…and I don’t appear on 687 tons of paper posing with polar bears (May issue of Vanity Fair).

Happy Earth Day everyone.