The Facts Are In: Recycling Works

As they bundle catalogs and newspapers or scour the fine print on cereal boxes for post-consumer content, most avid recyclers will, if pressed, confess to seditious thoughts that maybe 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 environmenally and economically.

According to "Greener Cartons" from the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (a project of Environmental Defense), companies can cut costs, demonstrate environmental leadership, and maintain packagae 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.

back to News And Views