Recycled Paperboard Provides Win-Win Opportunity For Business

Switching to recycled paperboard packaging can cut costs, demonstrate environmental leadership, and maintain package quality, according to a new report by the Alliance for Environmental Innovation. The report, “Greener Cartons: A Buyer’s Guide to Recycled-Content Paperboard,” is available at www.environmentaldefense.org on the web

“The quality, variety, and availability of recycled-content paperboard have improved dramatically in recent years,” said Bruce Hammond, Alliance paperboard project manager. “The best recycled paperboards now compete head-on with bleached virgin boards in terms of performance and appearance, but usually cost less.”

Paperboard is used to make the folding cartons that package a broad range of consumer products, from over-the-counter medicines to fast food, software, and cereal. More than half the products on supermarket shelves are now packaged in recycled paperboard.

Kodak made the switch from virgin to recycled-content paperboard a decade ago. “Today’s film cartons contain a minimum 75% post-consumer content and the company has realized significant cost savings from the changeover,” said Kodak senior packaging engineer, Gaylynn Durkin.

Other top brand names that are packaged in recycled-content paperboard include Warner Bros. videos and DVDs, Excedrin and Celebrex painkillers, Clairol Natural Instincts and Wella haircolor, UPS and FedEx overnight shipping envelopes, Duracell batteries, Hewlett-Packard printer cartridges, and Gillette Sensor shaving cartridges.

“The post-consumer content of the paperboard is what creates the greatest environmental savings,” said Hammond. “Companies have several different types of recycled-content paperboard to choose from, including paperboards that layer recycled materials between outer layers of virgin fibers, as well as board made from 100% recovered materials.”

The Alliance calculates that switching to only 35% postconsumer recycled-content for U.S. medicine and cosmetic cartons would create the following annual environmental benefits:
- 156,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided — the amount of greenhouse gas pollution from 27,000 cars driven 200 miles a week
- 2.6 billion gallons of wastewater avoided — the discharge from 27,000 households
- 510,000 fewer tons of trees used — the trees required to make the copy paper used by 11 million people
- 106,000 tons of solid waste avoided — the trash generated by 49,000 households