FACTSHEETS
Paper packaging comes from a renewable source
Unlike most other packaging materials, paper packaging is originally made from a renewable resource — trees. And those trees are in good shape. See Factsheet – The Truth about Trees. It may come as a surprise to many, but the commercial forest represents only 21% of Canada’s total land area (by far the greatest part is what is called “non-forest land” — primarily used for the growing of agricultural crops). Read more....
The Truth about Trees
First of all, trees are made from a renewable resource. What does that mean? It means they are not made from oil or natural gas or other non-renewable fossil fuels. Like other paper-based materials, paper packaging originally comes from growing trees. Read more....
Forest Certification Standards
The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers supports third-party forest certification as a tool to demonstrate the rigor of Canada’s forest management laws, and to document the country’s world-class sustainable forest management record.
Read more...
What’s the biggest user of the commercial forest?
The answer may surprise you!
Meet the mountain pine beetle
This little guy and his friends have devastated 19 times more commercial forest than was harvested for pulp, paper or lumber in the latest data year. And the beetle has reportedly now jumped from the lodge pole pine trees of BC to the jack pine trees of Alberta.
Read more...
Just over 10% of Canadian boxes,
bags and cartons are actually
made from freshly-cut trees
And you thought every time we needed another box or carton we’d just grab a chainsaw and head for the forest! No. Only 11% of all paper-based packaging made by Canadian mills for the domestic market actually uses freshly-cut trees. The balance comes from recycled paper and board and what are called wood residues (wood chips, shavings and sawdust left over from logging operations). Read more...
Paper-based packaging close to 80% recycled content
The average recycled content of paper packaging produced by Canadian mills for use in Canada has jumped to 77 per cent, a full 30 percentage points higher than it was just 20 years ago.
The Canadian industry is heavily weighted to recycled content. Of the 30 mill sites capable of producing packaging grades in 2010 almost two-thirds produced 100% recycled content. Domestic shipments of containerboard used to make corrugated boxes averaged 82% recycled content while boxboard averaged 77% recycled content. Read more...
What you can say about recycled content
The reference document for this information is Environmental claims: A guide for industry and advertisers, developed by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) in partnership with the Competition Bureau Canada. Read more...
Most paper packaging is recyclable and/or compostable
Most paper packaging is recyclable. The few exceptions are generally where wax or non-paper materials have been added to the paper so that the container can perform its particular packaging function ─ delivering a product in optimum condition to the consumer. Read more...
Recyclable
What “recyclable” means: Most materials are technically recyclable. Whether they are actually sent for recycling or recycled into something else is sometimes an entirely different story (see Recycling Rates factsheet). In Canada, use of the term “Recyclable” on a package is governed by the environmental labeling guidelines developed by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and the Competition Bureau, an independent law enforcement agency of the Government of Canada that protects and promotes competitive markets and enables informed consumer choice. Section 10.7 of these guidelines for industry and advertisers covers what and how claims for recyclability can be made. Read more...
The Paper Recycling Flow Chart
Primary or (virgin) paper fibres harvested from logs is long and strong. It is prized for these qualities where strength factors are paramount.
The blending of virgin fibre with used paper is also necessary to keep the whole paper recycling loop going since the fibres become shorter and weaker the more times they are recycled. Read more...
Recycling Rates
Clarification of Terms: By “Recycling Rate” we mean the amount of material “sent for recycling” compared to the amount that was originally generated or consumed in the marketplace. It is what has been collected for recycling minus any residue (contamination) removed at the initial processing stage (at a material recovery facility or MRF, for example). Read more...
What happens to paper materials put out for recycling?
Most gets recycled!
Into new boxes.
A corrugated box could be made from a mixture of old corrugated boxes, corrugated cuttings,
printing and writing paper, old cartons (boxboard) and wood chips, shavings and sawdust left
over from logging and sawmilling operations. Average recycled content in 2010 was 82%. Read more...
We can’t get enough!
It may come as a surprise to 33 million Canadians, but Canada itself will never produce enough used paper or board to supply the Canadian paper industry’s needs. We just don’t have enough! Read more...
Landfills get fat, not heavy
Measurement by weight is commonly used to describe how much material enters a landfill or makes up a household’s waste stream. But when you think about it, it is not so much the weight of a material that fills up a landfill or a recycling truck as the volume of that material or the space it takes up. As they say, landfills get fat, not heavy!. Read more...
Waste Diversion Statistics
Waste diversion statistics would have to be the most sought-after, contested, and misrepresented numbers around. How does one make sense of it all? The first point to note is that waste diversion is usually expressed in terms of weight (tonnes). While weight is certainly a useful measuring stick for disposal and recycling, it does not actually measure environmental performance. Read more...
Making do with less
At first sight it may seem strange that the paper packaging industry would actively promote the use of less packaging. But in fact paper packaging converters have always operated on the basis of reducing their production costs and persuading their various clients that their particular option will save the client more money. Read more...
The composting alternative
While most paper products are recyclable, sometimes they are just too far away from a recycling mill for recycling to be economically worthwhile. For example, there are limited or no suitable recycling facilities in the Atlantic or Prairie Provinces for the recycling of some used paper packaging. Even rural communities in provinces where there are recycling mills are concerned about the costs of shipping generally low-value used paper long distances for minimal economic benefit. Read more...
The waxed corrugated challenge
Waxes are applied in fish, poultry, meat and some vegetable packaging so that ice and water can be packed against the product, keeping it fresh.
The wax may appear as a coating on the inside and/or the outside layer of the box. On others, the wax is impregnated into the ruffled fluted layer of the box, making it less visible. Read more...
Compostable
What “compostable” means: Most paper materials are inherently compostable because they are an organic cellulose or carbon source. Indeed, kraft paper bags for leaf and yard waste have for years been cited as the benchmark test for compostability. Read more...
Industry well ahead of toxic laws
Canada's paper-based packaging industry already meets the most stringent toxic (heavy metal) legislation in North America. The Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC) acted on this issue way back in 1993, releasing the results of the survey of its 116-company membership. Read more...
Re-use is good but not always “environmentally better”
The 3Rs hierarchy (reduce, re-use, recycle) has been drummed into our heads for many years now, and it has certainly served as a useful guide to environmental performance. There is some logic to the hierarchy. Read more...
Case Study: The use and abuse of life cycle comparisons
The corrugated box is in the middle of a commercial fight with the plastic crate for a share of the fresh produce container market. For PPEC, the issue is primarily an economic one, but the plastic crate lobby has introduced environmental claims in an attempt to bolster its case. Read more...
Paper facts that may surprise you
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