Office pace: the generation of recovered fiber from offices continues to stutter as electronic communication and archiving flourish.

Print is not dead, the paper industry can rightly state, with a pointed argument being that one of the highest-volume Internet retailers of this decade has been one whose primary business is to sell books.

Similarly, in the workplace, paper continues to flow in a variety of ways, including courtesy of a number of employees who print out a healthy percentage of the e-mails and attached documents that they receive in their inboxes.

While the use of office paper has not disappeared overnight, paper manufacturers and recyclers of office grades have noticed that there is less paper circulated per employee in the average office.

The steady adoption of electronic communication (print on screen versus print on paper), electronic filing and storage is creating a smaller overall market for makers and recyclers of office paper.

IN THE NUMBERS. Each year, the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington, conducts a survey of its paper industry member companies to determine the demand for major paper grades and the domestic mill capacity in place to meet that demand.

Numbers from its most recent capacity report, released in March of this year, reveal that the domestic paper industry's printing and writing papermaking capacity declined 7.2 percent between 2000 and 2006 (For more information, see the Paper department, p. 35.)

For paper manufacturers, that is a gloomy number, considering total employment and GDP have both grown since 2000. People are working and doing so more productively in the United States, but they are also doing so with less paper made within their own borders.

For recyclers, the news is not nearly as bad, as the overall use of such paper has not declined nearly that much. Looking at the purchases of such paper in the same period, the decline was only 1.6 percent, meaning imported paper now makes up a greater share of printing and writing paper purchased.

In one of the major office paper grades, uncoated free sheet, the decline that is occurring does not appear to involve any shift to imports.

In that segment, domestic mill capacity declined 11.8 percent between 2000 and 2006, from 15.2 million tons down to 13.4 million tons.

The percentage of uncoated free sheet used within the United States declined by an even greater percentage: a 13.7 percent drop from 14.6 million tons purchased in 2000 to 12.6 million tons in 2006.

When considering the future use of these paper grades, a variety of trends point to challenges that are not likely to go away.

In a presentation to attendees of Recycling Today's European Paper Recycling Conference, which took place in Barcelona in late 2006, Graham Moore of research and consulting firm Pira International, Surrey, U.K., offered a summary of a study that considered long-term trends in the paper industry.

In the office grades, a trend to watch will be to what extent office workers continue to print out e-mails and other documents they receive digitally, according to the Pira study cited by Moore.

A feature in the November 2006 issue of Recycling Today noted one clear example of a large office making an intentional effort to use less paper in the workplace.

Citing a story in The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., The Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Rockland, Del., is portrayed in the article as being "in the vanguard" of the paperless medical records movement. The hospital has already converted its outpatient medical records system to a fully electronic online one and will also be doing so for its inpatient records next year.

The hospital's director of information management estimates that it has cut its paper consumption by 75 percent and has similarly reduced the number of boxes it sends to its records management vendor.

Contemplating such scenarios continues to create challenges for paper companies as they consider how to invest in future production capacity and for paper recyclers trying to obtain secondary fiber office grades.

GLOBAL DEMAND. The challenge facing paper makers is clear: There are likely to be more efforts like the one at the Delaware hospital to decrease the use of paper. Furthermore, a higher percentage of young workers who are entering the workforce are much more comfortable reading and filing electronically without ever having handled a paper document to complete their tasks.

Recyclers, for now, have a different challenge. Although the domestic paper industry may be static to match the lack of growth in paper use domestically, demand from domestic consumers (such as tissue mills) remains strong. Additionally, a growing paper and paperboard industry in China and other parts of Asia is eager to receive as much secondary fiber of any grade as can be obtained.

The "Outlook for Global Recovered Paper Markets" report issued by Moore & Associates, Atlanta, and EU Consulting, Starnberg, Germany, provides one forecast for the continued growth of the Chinese paper industry in particular.

The two companies forecast that the production of paper in China will increase by an average of 5.6 million tons per year between 2005 and 2012. "By 2012, China will be producing an additional 39 million tons of paper and board," the 2006 report states.

In a nation with limited forest resources, this has thus far meant a reliance on imported scrap paper. As China's paper industry has grown rapidly, its hunger for all fiber grades has also escalated. (See sidebar on p. 86.)

By volume, old newspapers (ONP), old magazines (OMG) and old corrugated containers (OCC) and other packaging grades make up the bulk of Chinas recovered fiber imports. But the nation's mills have also been consuming more high-grade material. In 1998, Chinese mills were only consuming an estimated 44,000 tons of imported high grades. But, by 2005, the number of mills had leapt to 396,000 tons.

Currently, "China imports mainly mixed office paper that is then sorted into higher and lower quality fractions using low-cost labor," notes "The Outlook for Global Recovered Paper Markets" report.

PERCENTAGE GAME. If less office paper is being generated, but an overall global demand still exists, can recyclers in the United States do anything to increase the percentage of office paper recovered?

The co-authors of the 2006 report say they believe there may yet be some untapped markets. "The potential scope for increasing collections of wood-free and other high-grades is greater than for any other grade of recovered fiber," states the report.

Among the problems is that high grades collected through residential programs are often collected as mixed paper. Whether recyclers and MRF operators in the United States find it cost-effective to do more sorting remains a question.

Additionally, some smaller generators of office paper, such as schools, churches and smaller flee-standing offices, are still disposing of paper rather than being serviced by a recycler.

Programs in buildings such as these (See "Paper Gets Schooled" sidebar on p. 88) may help the recovery rate move upward in the years ahead. And, in the near-term, students and their teachers continue to use paper for lessons and homework, perhaps meaning a conversion to a paperless environment remains more distant in grade school buildings in particular.

For the paper industry and the recyclers that help to close its production loop, any delay in establishing the paperless office trend will be a welcome development.

RELATED ARTICLE: Paper mill struggles.

An Oregon-based paper manufacturer that recycles newsprint is poised to close its Pomona, Calif., operation in the face of rising recovered fiber and higher energy prices, as well as declining demand for its product, according to a report in the San Bernardino Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.).

Oregon-based Blue Heron Paper says China's increasing demand for scrap paper is edging the company out.

"The lion's share of it is going overseas to China--they are willing to pay so much more for it," says Mike Siebers, Blue Heron's president and chief executive. "We can't compete."

The Pomona facility ceased operations March 7.

Increased export demand for recycled paper has driven up pricing in the Los Angeles basin by more than 30 percent throughout the past five months, Siebers tells the San Bernardino Sun.

"With no change in sight, it doesn't make sense to continue to operate the mill at a loss," Siebers tells the newspaper. "Unless something improves dramatically and quickly, the mill is expected to close on May 6."

The Pomona plant takes old newspapers (ONP) to create new, 100 percent recycled content newsprint.

The Pomona plant had been buying 17,000 to 18,000 metric tons of old newspapers per month.

RELATED ARTICLE: Paper gets schooled.

Every Thursday at Greenbriar Middle School, Parma, Ohio, students from special education class guide a big blue bin down the halls, stopping at each classroom and office.

The students politely knock on the various doors and request any scrap paper for recycling. The teachers gladly turn over their own classroom bins to the students who empty them, say "thank you" and "have a nice day," and then move on to the next room.

The journey takes about one class period, or 42 minutes to reach all the classrooms and offices in the school of about 750 students. It's a task that gives these students a sense of purpose as well as helps them with their everyday communication skills. The effort also benefits the school financially.

Since the beginning of 2006, Greenbriar has been using the services of Abitibi Consolidated's Cleveland location to help with its paper recycling program. Abitibi, with corporate headquarters in Houston, has been operating in the Cleveland area since 2003. At the beginning of the school year, Abitibi placed a recycling container at the front of the school. The container can hold nearly 2 tons of paper and is also available for any drive-by paper recycling from residents.

"The program is great not only for the school but for the surrounding community," says Denise Piotrowski, area manager for Abitibi in Cleveland. "It is truly a community-based effort." Piotrowski says that school can be a prime impetus for local recycling because the students can be the ones driving the program. "They go home and tell their parents and friends, newsletters are sent out from the school, and the drive begins to take on a life of its own," she says.

So far, Piotrowski says that hundreds of schools in Northeast Ohio have signed up for the program and it is going well. "Not only does the school get a financial payback, but the city where the school is located gets credit for the recycling tonnage," she says. The recycled paper eventually makes its way to a mill near Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Back at Greenbriar, students and staff are becoming more aware of the value of scrap paper. "Before, it was so easy to just throw away old papers," says John Rock, a social studies teacher, "Now I make a conscious effort to place papers in a nearby recycling bin."

The recycling fever has reached all corners of the school, as students are now thoroughly aware of the program and actively throw away their old papers in recycling bins.

"It starts to become habit," says Katelyn Petronick, an eighth grade student at Greenbriar. "You start to believe that every little bit helps." Greenbriar does not yet have an estimate of how much scrap paper it normally generates in a school year, but principal Frank Spisak says "we are soon going to find out" based on this recycling effort. "Schools generate a lot of scrap paper from student worksheets, notebooks, etc.," says Spisak, "and it is only natural that we find a way to recycle these items."

Since this is Greenbriar's first year in the Abitibi recycling program, next year the school will have a chance to get more rewards if it can surpass its previous year's total. Greenbriar's staff and students say they are up to the challenge, now that they have been schooled on recycling.

Contributed by Mark Phillips, a former Recycling Today managing editor who lives in the Cleveland area.

The author is editor-in-chief of Recycling Today and can be contacted at [e-mail].