In the mid 1960s, IBM advertising touted that the “Office of the Future” would become “paperless” with the advent of the computer age. At first, the opposite happened. Dot matrix printers spewed out more paper than anyone ever predicted to ensure hardcopy backup and provide office workers with tangible working documents. Concurrently, office copiers began gobbling up paper at an unprecedented rate.
Since then, it’s all changed as society has become comfortable with digital information. Every day there is greater transition from paper to electronic information in every sphere of personal and commercial life. While we will never become paperless, we are certainly on a course to becoming less paper dependent, at least in the area of communications.
The United States Postal Service is a good barometer of the decline of paper. The amount processed each year is down by more than 20 percent in volume since its peak in 2006. Hardest hit have been first class mailings – bills, letters and promotional offers, mostly replaced by email, on-line banking and couponing. Daily newspapers continue to decline as they lose readers to online periodicals and televisions’ local news reports.
The Association of American Publishers recently stated that e-book sales continue “powerfully strong growth.” Industry experts now estimate that e-books represent more than 10 percent of all book publishing revenues.
Further diminishing paper use, we are in the midst of a mobile computing revolution as wireless networks upgrade to 4G-LTE (Long Term Evolution), which will transmit and store vast quantities data. Voice command inventory systems directing workers through tasks previously communicated on paper is but one example of business moving away from paper. Massive data is being stored in cloud computing rather than on paper.
Higher Global Demand
Yet with this great migration from paper to digital in the realm of communications, recycled paper fiber is in higher demand than ever before for writing, printing, packaging and industrial applications and commanding commensurately high prices.
“I think the paper recycling industry is a strong growth industry because of world demand. Prices are going to fluctuate. Right now they are very high, but are coming down a little. I believe they will remain high for the next couple of years,” predicted Johnny Gold, senior vice president of the Newark Recycled Fibers division of the Newark Group.
The Newark Group, founded in 1912, is an integrated global producer of 100 percent recycled paperboard and paperboard products with significant manufacturing and marketing operations in North America and Europe.
“Collections have been off for some time for two reasons,” said Gold. “One is due to poor economic conditions in this country. Business has been slower. It picked up a little after schools went back into session. The other reason is the fact we are getting more and more paperless no matter where you look. Everything is going electronic as the world moves forward. If the economics of this country get any better, and hopefully they will, supply could get very tight very quickly.
“If it were not for world demand, everything would be in line with each other, but developing nations need newsprint and more fiber for all applications. That demand for fiber has increased heavily compared to what it was 5 or 10 years ago.”
Data for 2010 indicates that 31 percent of the paper and paperboard recovered in the United States went to produce containerboard and 12 percent went to produce boxboard, which includes folding boxes and gypsum wallboard facings. Exports of recovered paper to China and other nations absorbed nearly 40 percent of the paper collected for recycling in the United States in 2010.
While world demand is up significantly, the amount of paper consumed in the United States has declined according to the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA). During the past 20 years, 1999 had a record high production of 105,316 million tons with 44.5 percent, or 46,818 million tons recovered for recycling. By 2010, the supply dropped to 81,209 million tons, but with a much higher, 63.5 percent recovery rate, or 51,545 million tons recovered. In other words, a net increase of 4,727 million tons more recovered in 2010 than in 1999.
Source: American Recycler
By Mike Breslin