What’s the most eco-friendly copy paper?
This is a question we get asked (a lot!) and until now it was hard to give a straight answer.
To be honest, none of the office papers available on the market previously met all of our criteria for best practice in sustainability.
Some of the criteria we use to compare office papers include:
- Is it Australian made?
- Is it 100% recycled?
- What percentage is post-consumer waste?
- How has the fibre been bleached?
- Is it a premium grade?
- Is it suitable for use in office copiers and printers?
For two years now, we have been waiting with bated breath for the first recycled papers to roll off the newly constructed $90 million waste-paper recycling facility at Australian Paper’s Maryvale Mill in Victoria – the only one of its kind in Australia.
New recycling plant
Incorporating the very latest in technology, the new waste-paper recycling plant promises to divert up to 80,000 tonnes of waste paper from landfill each year; that’s equivalent to 16 billion sheets of A4 copy paper!
We Aussies now have a closed-loop solution… at last! We use the paper, we collect the paper, we make new paper again.
So, we Aussies now have a closed-loop solution… at last! We use the paper, we collect the paper, we make new paper again.
Buying local just makes sense. We create local jobs, we use our own waste paper, instead of importing waste from overseas (think of the carbon kilometres) and we divert our own paper waste from landfill.
Without a facility like this, recycled pulp and office and printing paper has had to be imported from overseas and Australia’s waste office paper has been either sent to landfill or overseas for processing into low-grade materials like cardboard.
Old-growth forests
Although it’s very tempting to buy the cheapest imported copy paper, take a moment to consider the rate at which old-growth forests are being ploughed down and the consequences.
Australian Paper has gone out on a limb (pardon the pun) in investing $90 million in the recycling industry. They need (and deserve) our support. It’s hard for them to compete with cheap, imported papers manufactured by companies who couldn’t give two hoots about the environment.
Support needed
The recycling plant is currently only operating at a third of its capacity. Wouldn’t it be great to see it operating to full capacity!
And more to the point, wouldn’t it be awful for the recycling facility to be closed down in a few years time, with the postmortem: ‘There just wasn’t the demand for recycled product in Australia’.
When considering what NOT to buy
- Do not buy paper made from old-growth forests (obviously!).
- Do not buy paper that has been chlorine bleached.
- Do not be fooled by claims of carbon neutral (you can’t slash and burn down a forest and magic it away by purchasing a handful of carbon credits).
So, please join us in getting behind Australian Paper and make the switch to purchasing products manufactured at its new recycling plant.
Be proud to ‘buy local’ and do the right thing for the environment!
Heather Lesley, Founder, ecooffice.com.au
