Single Stream: Diverting Recycling Or Fixer-Upper?

摘要

For nearly 20 years, I've been working on developing markets for recycled paper. These days, every paper company makes at least some recycled paper and the quality is top notch. For the past two years, I've been working on creating consistent directions among environmental groups working on paper issues. Where before there were constant arguments among environmental groups about which kind of paper was best, and that led to widely conflicting messages to purchasers and also to paper manufacturers, now there is increasingly broad agreement that recycled content is the foundation for environmentally sustainable paper. I thought we were getting somewhere, until I started hearing about increasing problems at the paper mills with the recovered fiber they were getting to make recycled paper, particularly from single-stream collection programs. "Uh-oh," I thought. "We can't let this be a roadblock."