Criterion 6, Indicator 33: Recovery or Recycling of Forest Products as a Percentage of Total Forest Products Consumption

摘要

This indicator shows the trend in recovering wood and paper for reuse in products in the United States. This reuse can hold down the need to harvest wood to meet U.S. consumption needs. The paper recycling rate (utilization rate in producing new paper) increased from 22% to 38% between 1970 and 1996, but then stabilized at 37% to 38% between 1996 and 2006. This rate has been stable despite continuing increase in the recovery rate of paper in the 1990s though 2006 to 51% because increases in recovery after the mid 1990s have been exported. The effects of increasing recovery after the mid 1990s were felt primarily in offsetting harvest in other countries and not in the United States. The estimated recovered wood utilization rate is highly uncertain, but is estimated to have increased from an insignificant amount in 1990 to 10% in 2006. The recovered wood utilization rate for wood pallets alone has increased from 2% in 1993 to 34% in 2000 and 38% in 2006. A rough estimate of the recycling rate (utilization rate) of post-consumer wood and paper into burning with energy generation is 15% to 20% for the period 1990 to 2006.