Making Progress lbward the 50 Percent Recovery Coal
hile recycling has played an impor-
tant role throughout the 300-plus
year history of pulp, paper and
W paperboard manufacture in America,
1993 marked two particularly significant
recycling milestones.
Last year, for the first time in history, more
paper was recovered in the United States
than was landfilled - a remarkable
accomplishment made possible by the
millions of Americans who take the time to
separate their used paper and make it
available for recovery. Last year also
marked achievement of the industry's 1995
goal to recover 40 percent of all the paper
Americans use - a goal reached two
years ahead of schedule. And at the end of
last year, the industry set its sights even
higher, establishing a new goal to recover
one-half of all the paper Americans use in
the year 2000.Achieving such an ambitious goal will not
be easy. Already, however, America's
pulp, paper and paperboard industry is
investing billions of dollars in plants and
equipment designed to expand utilization
of recovered paper as a raw material.
Recovered paper utilization continues to
rise in each major sector of the industry
-as does consumer demand for
recycled-content paper products.But the strong growth in paper recovery
does more than just provide papermakers
with a vital raw material. The millions of
tons of paper Americans recover at home
and in the workplace are millions of tons
that don't end up in the nation's landfills -
good news for the environment.Thanks to You, It's BOOmiflB
Establishing the paper industry's 40 percent
paper recovery goal in 1990 marked the
starting point of an unprecedented effort
here in the United States to expand
recovery of paper for recycling. It's an
effort that's in full swing today.Thanks to the efforts of millions of
Americans who sort out recyclable paper
at home and work, impressive statistics
continue to mount. For example:-~
Last year, nearly 36 million tons of paper
and paperboard were recovered in the
United States - twice as much as in 1980.AMERICAN FOREST 6 PAPER ASSOCIATION i