tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885144496996540872.post817895698364319835..comments2023-10-18T02:43:22.019-07:00Comments on eco-samurai: They lied about recycled paper!eco-samuraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13067336743227509575noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5885144496996540872.post-84805149796249175232011-05-19T13:36:02.415-07:002011-05-19T13:36:02.415-07:00First of all, "recycling" has two differ...First of all, "recycling" has two different meanings in the paper industry. One is reprocessing "botched" paper in-house, which companies have been doing since the beginning of paper. The other is "post-consumer" recycling, which is what the average idiot thinks all "recycled" paper is. <br /><br />Now the dominant part of paper is some kind of plant fiber. How long these fibers are to begin with varies depending on the type of meterial being used and how much it's chopped in pulping. Resume paper has fairly long fibers; toilet paper doesn't. Every time you reprocess the fibers, they get a little shorter. That's why resume papers have little to no recycled material, while toilet paper can have fairly high recycled content. So mid- to low-quality papers can be just fine with a high recycled content, but bringing post-consumer content up to the standards required for a high-quality paper may be more work than it's worth.<br /><br />Of course, that's assuming we're talking about post-consumer paper. Fibers from old clothes, agricultural waste, (even STONE!) etc. can come into the "paper chain" with near-virgin status, and I've seen many good-quality papers with such post-consumer-not-as-paper fibers. (These often don't list their source fiber as "recycled" because it wasn't recycled from a previous PAPER incarnation)wendygoerlnoreply@blogger.com