THE FINISHED PRODUCT
Many recycled papers sold in the early 1980s were still in a development
phase and it sometimes showed. Printers complained about linting,
dusting, picking, limpness and many other problems. Customers complained
about jamming and splotches. Now recycled papers are made by the
best paper mills in the world and many high quality recycled grades
are on the market. Recycled papers perform competitively with virgin
sheets in printing presses, copiers, laser printers, computers,
inserters, and most other paper equipment.
The only differences now are aesthetics, and these are very minor.
Sometimes recycled paper has slightly more small specks in the paper
than virgin sheets. And recycled papers may be a point or two lower
in brightness than their virgin paper counterparts. (Brightness
is measured by the percentage of light reflected back from the paper.)
But this difference would not be discernible unless the two sheets
were held up next to each other.
Consumers are beginning to realize that high paper brightness may
not be the best value - usually it is achieved by bleaching with
chlorine, which is toxic - and that high brightness may actually
undermine the readability of material printed on the paper.
Recycled and tree-free papers generally have higher opacity (which
means they are harder to see through), often considered an asset,
especially for double-sided printing. Publishers, for example, can
save on paper by using a thinner, less expensive sheet if it has
more opacity. Using a thinner sheet can also save on mailing costs.
Paper users have found that environmentally sound papers work well
in a variety of situations. For example, a survey of commercial
printers using recycled paper, conducted by Paper Sales magazine
a few years ago, found 80% of them reporting that, even then, recycled
paper worked as well as, or better than, virgin paper.
Recycled commodity paper - copier, offset, and other office papers
- costs, on average, 7-10% more than comparable virgin papers. Although
making recycled paper should technically be no more expensive than
making virgin, in fact its cost is often higher due to a combination
of factors. On the production side, economies of scale are more
favorable to commodity virgin paper. Far more virgin paper is produced,
and on much larger paper machines than most recycled paper. Virgin
paper mills that convert to recycled must incorporate the costs
of retrofitting. And many recycled sheets are made from pulp bought
on the open market, which is more expensive than paper made from
pulp in a facility integrated with the paper machine. In addition,
paper marketers know that buyers are used to higher prices for recycled
paper and therefore may not price it as competitively as possible.
Specialty papers, however, such as designer papers (text and cover)
and rag bond papers, are essentially equal in price because both
recycled and virgin papers are made on the same kind of papermaking
machines. In fact, the recycled is now often less expensive than
Paper prices in the early 1990s were at the bottom of the industry's
pricing cycle, so paper buyers' budgets were battered by the huge
run-up in all paper prices in 1994 and 1995. Many purchasers pulled
back from buying recycled paper during the higher pricing, explaining
that although virgin paper prices were high, too, they couldn't
justify spending even more for recycled. This was bad news for paper
and pulp mills which had just invested in new deinking and recycled
paper systems. Some of them stopped producing recycled paper, in
response to high scrap paper prices and reduced consumer demand.
This is why it is crucial that paper buyers keep sending a consistent
message to the paper industry, through their purchases, that recycled
paper investments are worth the risk.
Tree-free paper prices are often at the high end of recycled paper
prices or higher, although their prices are coming down as more
are sold and some buyers join in purchasing large lots. Some processed
chlorine-free papers are competitively priced. Tree-free papers
face an uneven playing field because of government timber subsidies
as well as a totally out-of-balance economy of scale. As they become
more widely produced in the U.S., their prices will become more
competitive. Even now, buyers frequently can keep prices in line
by substituting a lighter grade (because many have higher opacity)
and some find that this actually saves them money over what they
would have paid for more traditional choices.
For all higher priced, environmentally sound papers, using innovative
waste prevention concepts can keep paper budgets down even when
the individual paper purchases may cost somewhat more.