Paper Manufacturing (CONT’D FROM PAGE 30)
and third-party forest certification advanced by the paper industry, net U.S. forest area increased around 18 million acres over the past 30 years (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization). The paper manufacturing process uses mostly renew- able, carbon-neutral energy generated from biomass which, when burned, recycles biogenic carbon (carbon ab- sorbed from the atmosphere and stored in trees) back into the environment. This fact, combined with investments in energy efficiency and process improvements helped the U.S. paper industry reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emis- sions per ton of product produced by 24.1 percent be- tween 2005 and 2020 (AF&PA). According to the U.S. EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory, the pulp and paper industry is not a major contributor to climate change. In 2020, the industry was responsible for 0.6 percent of total CO2e emissions, compared to 0.5 per- cent in 2019. The industry’s actual emissions were slight- ly lower in 2020, but increased as a percentage of total emissions, which decreased 11 percent due to the reduc- tion in fossil fuel emissions resulting from the pandemic. Water used in the manufacturing process at a typical U.S. paper mill is recycled up to 10 times. Then it’s cleaned to meet strict state and federal water quality standards and most of it, around 90 percent, is returned to its source. About one percent remains in the manufactured paper products, and the rest evaporates back into the environ- CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
year’s plastic-waste exports, a new report published by environmental organizations Beyond Plastics and The Last Beach Cleanup estimates that Americans recycled only 5-6 percent of their plastics, down from the 8.7 percent reported by the EPA in 2018. But the real figure could be even lower, the report said, given factors such as the plas- tic waste collected for recycling that is instead sent to ce- ment kilns and burned. The report states that, “Despite the stark failure of plastics recycling, the plastics, packaging and products industries have waged a decades-long mis- information campaign to perpetuate the myth that plastic is recyclable.” “Plastics recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that,” Ju- dith Enck, President of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator, said in a press release. “There is no circular economy for plastics,” added Jan Dell, founder of The Last Beach Cleanup. “Plastics and products companies co-opted the success of other ma- terials recycling and America’s desire to recycle to create the myth that plastic is recyclable.” The life cycle of paper tells a different story. Paper products are manufactured using an infinitely re- newable natural resource – trees that are purpose-grown, harvested and re-grown in sustainably managed forests. Thanks in great part to the sustainable forestry practices
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