Good intentions help create bad market. (Welcome).Samuel Johnson once observed that the path to Hell is paved pave tr.v. paved, pav·ing, paves 1. To cover with a pavement. 2. To cover uniformly, as if with pavement. 3. To be or compose the pavement of. with good intentions. Paper recyclers who have watched pricing fall over the past 14 months might consider the market as having gone to hell, and some may also point to the role of good intentions. The origins of paper recycling Paper recycling is the process of recovering waste paper and remaking it into new paper products. There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. trace back well before the first Earth Day, the first municipal recycling program and certainly before Germany's Green Dot program and other recycling initiatives coming out of the European Union European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community . Traditionally, the industry has been one of supply being collected to meet demand from mills, with collectors having the ability to curtail cur·tail tr.v. cur·tailed, cur·tail·ing, cur·tails To cut short or reduce. See Synonyms at shorten. [Middle English curtailen, to restrict supply when demand dropped. In the U.S., the supply side of that equation changed quite a bit in the 1980s and 1990s (especially for old newspapers) as more municipal collection programs were established. Just after the industry had made some adjustments to compensate for this new supply, the governments of Western Europe Western Europe The countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). began passing laws that are resulting in another supply stream with a spigot that cannot be turned off. Economists who have looked at the current slump in the paper stock markets can certainly point to reduced demand for fiber as one factor. But equally apparent, most agree, has been an avalanche of supply of certain grades from specific parts of the world. Much of the finger pointing has been toward Western Europe, where government attention to recycling as a waste disposal/sustainability issue has prompted much higher collection rates of several paper grades. The onslaught of paper began affecting European markets first, but then the oversupply o·ver·sup·ply n. pl. o·ver·sup·plies A supply in excess of what is appropriate or required. tr.v. o·ver·sup·plied, o·ver·sup·ply·ing, o·ver·sup·plies found its way to east Asia--home to mills that have long accepted large tonnages of secondary fiber from the U.S. As Wade Schuetzeberg of America Chung Nam points out in a story for this supplement, Asian buyers now have the luxury of playing the U.S. market off the European market while making their scrap paper scrap paper n → pedazos mpl de papel scrap paper n → papier m brouillon scrap paper scrap n → purchases. Traditional paperstock dealers are again lamenting the effects on their market of oversupply brought about by governments with good intentions of boosting recycling and saving landfill space. The saving grace could come in the long term. The paper industry is further ensured that adequate supply of secondary fiber exists. That assurance has helped more mills accept scrap paper as their chief feedstock feed·stock n. Raw material required for an industrial process. Noun 1. feedstock - the raw material that is required for some industrial process raw material, staple - material suitable for manufacture or use or finishing , thus eventually bolstering the demand side of the ever-adjusting supply-demand equation. |
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