Every year Recycle Now, the national organisation for recycling, holds its annual celebration of recycling and being 'green' and that got us thinking about environmentally friendly paper and printing. It is obviously fairly commonplace to recycle as much of our household and business waste as we can but we still need to build on the number of organisations actively choosing to use recycled products.

Here we outline some of the terminology, the benefits as well as dispelling some of the myths surrounding recycled paper:

What exactly does 'Forest Sustainable' mean?

A sustainable forest is a forest that is carefully managed so that as trees are felled they are replaced with seedlings that eventually grow into mature trees. This is a carefully and skilfully managed system. The forest is a working environment, producing wood products such as wood pulp for the paper and card industry and wood based materials for furniture manufacture and the construction industry. Great care is taken to ensure the safety of wildlife and to preserve the natural environment.

Why do printers use inks made from vegetable oil?

Vegetable oils are better for the environment as they emit less harmful pollutants than mineral oils. There is also a move towards converting diesel delivery vehicles to run on vegetable oil as it is much cheaper and also better for the environment.

Is recycled paper more expensive?

Most paper is evenly priced with non-recycled stock, especially letterheads, envelopes and business card board. Where recycled papers cost more, price differentials are usually quite small and most printers will buy in larger quantities and plan ahead both of which helps reduce price premiums on recycled paper.

Is it possible to produce the same high quality results on recycled and non-recycled?

Absolutely. Recycled paper will have the same feel as virgin paper, it just comes down to choosing the correct stock. Colour quality is not affected either. The only drawback is that there are a much smaller variety of paper, paper sizes and weights but if large quantities or a specific type of paper is needed, most printers will be able to source the right stock in adequate amounts with some notice.

What is Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) recycled paper?

Without giving you too much science, ECF is the process of bleaching paper and compared to other methods it virtually eliminates, not just reduces, dioxin and other persistent chlorinated organics which are harmful to the environment. The other main method of bleaching paper is called TCF but the paper produced using this method is weaker meaning it can't be recycled as many times and it requires 6-10% more wood to make a ton of TCF pulp than ECF pulp.

Is most paper recycled now, do I really need to ask for it?

At the height of its success, recycled paper only had about 10% of the printing and writing paper market and even those papers contained mostly virgin materials. Now distributors, printers and paper mills say that demand is dropping because buyers believe they no longer have to ask for recycled. As we said at the start of the article, we are all getting better at recycling but not necessarily better at then using recycled products.

Isn't it better to burn paper for energy rather than to recycle it?

The fibres in fine paper can be recycled up to a dozen times before becoming too short for papermaking, saving resources, water and energy, and reducing pollution each one of those times. The impact and value of these repeated savings are much greater than the minimal amount of energy produced when the paper is burned instead.

There is really no excuse to not use recycled paper today. Most printing jobs could swap virgin paper for recycled stock with no effect on price or quality. Going green needn't be an add on, a 'campaign' or rely on recycling weeks such as those run by Recycle Now. It can be integrated in to an organisation's entire printing and communications strategy with no negative impact.