The Facts Are In: Recycling Works

Posted: 26-Nov-2001; Updated: 01-Aug-2007

As you bundle catalogs and newspapers, or scour the fine print on cereal boxes for post-consumer content, you might wonder whether recycling amounts to little more than a penance that makes us feel better. But now all good recyclers can rest assured that recycling is truly worthwhile: two new reports show that recycling does pay off environmentally and economically.

According to Greener Cartons: A Buyer's Guide to Recycled-Content Paperboard from the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (a project of Environmental Defense), companies can cut costs, demonstrate environmental leadership, and maintain package quality by switching to recycled paperboard packaging. Paperboard is used to make the folding cartons that package everything from aspirin to cereal, toothpaste to software. Not only does paperboard with post-consumer recycled content have less of an environmental impact (it uses less wood, energy and water, reduces emissions of greenhouse gases and air and water pollutants, and cuts the amount of trash sent to incinerators and landfills), it is cost effective and almost identical to virgin paperboard in terms of performance and appearance.

These savings were demonstrated in a recent Alliance project with UPS. Among other innovations, the project resulted in a recycled, reusable paperboard overnight mail envelope that better meets their customers' needs and created substantial cost savings. Other top brand names now packaged in recycled-content paperboard include FedEx overnight shipping envelopes, Kodak film cartons, Warner Bros. videos and DVDs, Excedrin and Celebrex painkillers, Clairol Natural Instincts and Wella haircolor, Duracell batteries, Hewlett-Packard printer cartridges, and Gillette Sensor shaving cartridges, as well as half of the food products on supermarket shelves. "It is a win-win opportunity for companies; they cut costs and help the environment at the same time," says Bruce Hammond, Alliance paperboard project manager.

A study from the Environmental Protection Agency also clearly shows the economic benefits of recycling. Among the key findings of the national "U.S. Recycling Economic Information (REI) Study" (in cooperation with the National Recycling Coalition) are that recycling and reuse add value to the U.S. economy: 56,000 establishments employ over 1.1 million people and generate an annual payroll of nearly $37 billion, demonstrating that the industry makes a vital contribution to job creation and economic development. Moreover, it is competitive with other major industries and has indirect benefits as well.