In its simplest definition, the circular economy is a system focused on recycling, renewing and reusing valuable resources.
For this reason, you determine paper’s place in the circular economy: when you use a paper bag or reach for a product packaged in paper, you’re playing an important role in this new type of economy. How so? Products made from paper come from trees — a natural and renewable resource. The paper industry plants roughly twice as many trees each year as it harvests.
While paper is naturally sustainable, the industry dedicates significant resources to making sure paper’s human impact on the environment is minimised. Jacob Cude, a senior geospatial analyst at a major pulp and paper producer, monitors the globe using satellite technology to help coordinate harvest, replanting and habitat plans, ensuring forests are properly used and cared for.
Cude says: “This science, this technology, these data sets allow our industry to measure how much forest resource is out there and how much we’re affecting the forest resources around our mills. It helps us decide how we can effectively use the wood that’s out there.”
When trees are harvested, the paper industry uses every part of the tree. Around two-thirds of the energy used by leading mills comes from renewable biomass energy, such as leaves and bark. Innovation continues in the design lab, where engineers develop products that make the best possible use of all materials.
Recyclable Paper Products: Part of the Circular Economy Revolution
Recycling is another key part of the circular economy. Paper is among the most recycled materials, and the paper industry wants to keep the recycling rate rising, especially since paper fibres can be recycled up to seven times.
Even at the end of its life cycle, paper — unlike packaging that does not biodegrade — slowly breaks down and returns to the soil. Paper can also be composted (ready to have a miniature circular economy in your own backyard?).
Paper is circular by nature, and many people in the industry have a circular connection to the land as well. For Malisa Maynard, an environmental safety specialist at a pulp and paper products manufacturer, forest products are a family tradition.
Maynard says: “We really try to embrace the circular economy — to maximise the use of materials, to make the best possible use of and optimise what we have.”
And as a consumer, when you choose paper products, you become part of that legacy too.