THE FINISHED PRODUCT Quality
Many recycled papers sold in the early 1980s were still in a development phase and it sometimes showed. Printers complained about linting, dusting, picking, limpness and many other problems. Customers complained about jamming and splotches. Now recycled papers are made by the best paper mills in the world and many high quality recycled grades are on the market. Recycled papers perform competitively with virgin sheets in printing presses, copiers, laser printers, computers, inserters, and most other paper equipment. The only differences now are aesthetics, and these are very minor. Sometimes recycled paper has slightly more small specks in the paper than virgin sheets. And recycled papers may be a point or two lower in brightness than their virgin paper counterparts. (Brightness is measured by the percentage of light reflected back from the paper.) But this difference would not be discernible unless the two sheets were held up next to each other. Consumers are beginning to realize that high paper brightness may not be the best value - usually it is achieved by bleaching with chlorine, which is toxic - and that high brightness may actually undermine the readability of material printed on the paper. Recycled and tree-free papers generally have higher opacity (which means they are harder to see through), often considered an asset, especially for double-sided printing. Publishers, for example, can save on paper by using a thinner, less expensive sheet if it has more opacity. Using a thinner sheet can also save on mailing costs. Paper users have found that environmentally sound papers work well in a variety of situations. For example, a survey of commercial printers using recycled paper, conducted by Paper Sales magazine a few years ago, found 80% of them reporting that, even then, recycled paper worked as well as, or better than, virgin paper. PRICING Recycled commodity paper - copier, offset, and other office papers - costs, on average, 7-10% more than comparable virgin papers. Although making recycled paper should technically be no more expensive than making virgin, in fact its cost is often higher due to a combination of factors. On the production side, economies of scale are more favorable to commodity virgin paper. Far more virgin paper is produced, and on much larger paper machines than most recycled paper. Virgin paper mills that convert to recycled must incorporate the costs of retrofitting. And many recycled sheets are made from pulp bought on the open market, which is more expensive than paper made from pulp in a facility integrated with the paper machine. In addition, paper marketers know that buyers are used to higher prices for recycled paper and therefore may not price it as competitively as possible. Specialty papers, however, such as designer papers (text and cover) and rag bond papers, are essentially equal in price because both recycled and virgin papers are made on the same kind of papermaking machines. In fact, the recycled is now often less expensive than virgin paper. Paper prices in the early 1990s were at the bottom of the industry's pricing cycle, so paper buyers' budgets were battered by the huge run-up in all paper prices in 1994 and 1995. Many purchasers pulled back from buying recycled paper during the higher pricing, explaining that although virgin paper prices were high, too, they couldn't justify spending even more for recycled. This was bad news for paper and pulp mills which had just invested in new deinking and recycled paper systems. Some of them stopped producing recycled paper, in response to high scrap paper prices and reduced consumer demand. This is why it is crucial that paper buyers keep sending a consistent message to the paper industry, through their purchases, that recycled paper investments are worth the risk. Tree-free paper prices are often at the high end of recycled paper prices or higher, although their prices are coming down as more are sold and some buyers join in purchasing large lots. Some processed chlorine-free papers are competitively priced. Tree-free papers face an uneven playing field because of government timber subsidies as well as a totally out-of-balance economy of scale. As they become more widely produced in the U.S., their prices will become more competitive. Even now, buyers frequently can keep prices in line by substituting a lighter grade (because many have higher opacity) and some find that this actually saves them money over what they would have paid for more traditional choices. For all higher priced, environmentally sound papers, using innovative waste prevention concepts can keep paper budgets down even when the individual paper purchases may cost somewhat more. |