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I
t is possible that some of last year’s
waste paper was seen in the same
apartment this year in the form of
corrugated cardboard around a Christmas
package, a pasteboard container for the
eggs, the caps on the cream bottle, or
the box the laundry was delivered in,”
reports the New York Times in a story on
paper recycling in New York City. It’s one that
sounds like it could have run in the paper
last week, but the date on the byline reads
April 10, 1927— nearly a century ago.
Many of the original dealers were
immigrants from southern Italy, like
the Benedetto family, who in 1929
purchased three buildings in Lower
Manhattan from which to run theirpaper recycling empire. The Benedettos
and others like them began as rag-
pickers with pushcarts, collecting rubbish
from apartments and mansions alike
and sorting out even the smallest scraps
of paper and fabric for potential reuse.
And while some of the early 20th
century boom in paper recycling—
especially in major cities—was tied to new
ideas about trash and sanitation reform,
the idea that paper is a fundamentally
reusable product is closely linked to theprinting some of the early American his-
torical documents, including pieces au-
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“The US was founded on recycling
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says Laura Thompson, an independent
consultant with over twenty years of
experience in the paper recycling industry
and a PhD in paper science from the
Institute of Paper Science and Technology.
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customer of Rittenhouse Paper Mill,
a Philadelphia paper mill founded
by William Rittenhouse in 1690. The
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operation in the American colonies, and
William Rittenhouse’s work includedturning linen rags—themselves woven
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on their recycled paper to print books,
pamphlets, and newspapers. And while
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knowledge that paper itself was both
something that came from recycling and
something that would eventually return
to the earth was widespread. A 1984
story on Rittenhouse in Paper Agemagazine mentions an anonymously
authored poem that would have
been familiar to many in 18th century
Philadelphia:ŋŶĞÖŶŶĞāƪ ÖƗƒĞĢóĞƩ ũŭŶŭťũĢłėŭ
from the land
DĢũŭŶƪ ÖƗ̇ŶĞāłƘÖũł
¦ŋƒāÖƑāŶĞāŭÖL·āƒĞĢóĞŶĞāƘŶŋŋĴ
pains to spin
Then of the Rags the paper is made,
ÂĞĢóĞĢłťũŋóāŭŭŋĕŶĢL·āùŋŶЃÖŭŶā
and fade;
ŋƒĞÖŶóŋL·āŭĕũŋL·ŶĞāāÖũŶĞ̇
appeareth plain,
The same in Time, returns again.P
aper’s connection to the
natural world is one Thompson says
is as important to the industry as it
is to consumers. “If forests don’t exist
the industry doesn’t exist, so it’s
always been in their best interest
to make sure that we had sustainable,
well-managed forests regardless of
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says. “If you don’t have resources, you
don’t have an industry.”
And in many cases that means
actively working to manage existing
forest land and encourage new growth.
One statistic Thompson mentions is that
the paper industry, in North America,
plants more trees than it harvests,
and that often comes from good
management. “Depending on the forest
type it is sort of like tending a garden,”
she says, “where if you take out older,
dead, more mature wood, the younger
trees have more light, they have more
access to sun, they’re competing less
for natural resources and they actually
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you can encourage robust, healthier
forests by managing it.”
The industry is also working to make the
production of paper more sustainable.
Over the last several years, paper
producers from California to Maine