Reducing Plastics (CONT’D FROM PAGE 18)
According to Natural Resources Canada’s State of Can- ada’s Forests Annual Report, the total forest harvest for all lumber (which includes market pulp, tissue, newsprint, packaging, and printing and writing paper) represented 0.2% of Canada’s forest land in 2020.
And yet, despite this successful model, despite the wide access to recycling, and despite the investments from our industry to regularly buy back their own materials to use in place of virgin materials, we are seeing more misleading statements about paper packaging in the context of plas- tics, especially as they relate to the term “single-use,” and misconceptions about forestry and paper packaging. It’s important to understand that, in essence, most packaging materials – whether it’s glass, metal, plastic, or paper – can be considered single-use. But the key point is that some of these materials are more successfully re- cycled than others. And paper packaging is one of those successful examples, with research showing that paper can be recycled up to seven times. That’s not single use. That’s reuse up to seven times. That’s because paper packaging materials have the right conditions in place to be collected, processed, and actually recycled – and not all materials have those condi- tions or such an established recycling framework. While most paper packaging made in Canada is pro- duced with recycled content, the paper fibres it was origi- nally made from came from a tree. However, the Canadian paper packaging industry doesn’t use much in the way of freshly cut trees, and the little that is harvested must be successfully regenerated by Canadian law.
Furthermore, the paper packaging industry is not a ma- jor cause of deforestation – which is when forest land is permanently cleared and converted to make way for new, non-forest land use – it is the agriculture, mining, oil and gas, and built-up sectors that account for the majority of permanent deforestation. The facts are clear. The major paper packaging grades made in Canada – which include containerboard (used to make corrugated cardboard boxes), boxboard (e.g., cereal or shoe boxes), and Kraft paper (used for bags and sacs)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
20 November 13, 2023
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