By Patrick F. Cannon

Back in the mid-1960s (they really did exist), I worked for an integrated paper company. “Integrated” in that case just meant that they grew or bought the trees, made wood pulp into paper of various kinds, then made  the paper into bags and boxes (they also made finer paper for writing and printing). I was in the part of the business that sold bags to people like Ralston Purina, Quaker Oats, Quickrete, MiracleGro, Organic Compost (“Number One in the Number Two Business”), and Kingsford Charcoal, among many others. We also sold a lot of paper potato and onion bags.

            I remember being somewhat flabbergasted when some environmentalists began to accuse the paper industry of murdering trees in their greedy quest for profit. The lunatic fringe even drove spikes into trees soon to be  harvested, causing serious injury to loggers. This confused me, since I knew that my company (Union Camp) actually grew most of the trees they used on the one million acres of forests they owned, or bought trees from tree farmers. While obviously it takes a lot longer to grow a Pine tree than a stalk of corn, the idea is much the same. You harvest, then plant. Although I had long left the industry by then, eventually plastic bags began to replace paper for many uses.

            Nevertheless, recycling paper became a hot topic, especially newspapers and magazines. I think it can be said that these efforts were the beginning of today’s recycling industry. Today, most paper products include at least some recycled material. Metal recycling actually predates paper. Today, 40 percent of steel comes from scrap; and fully 60 percent of aluminum comes from those beer and soft drink cans you throw in the recycling bin.

The percentage for glass is 31, but only 5 for plastic. I’m not sure why this is so low. I put all my plastic in the recycling bin, but it doesn’t amount to much, since I don’t buy soft drinks or water in plastic bottles. Our refuse hauler does pick up garbage and recycling in different trucks, but I have no idea what happens to it after that.

            Once upon a time, fast-food restaurants relied on paper for cups, plates, wrappers and straws. Slowly but surely, as with grocery and commodity bags, plastic began to replace paper. The reason? Much cheaper. But unlike paper, most plastic stubbornly resists decomposition. Added to this is the ubiquitous plastic water bottle. I have never quite understood why people with access to safe drinking water insist on buying water, but unreasoning fear has always encouraged irrational behavior. In this country at least, some folks are starting to use refillable water bottles.

            Of course, if the world’s population was the same as it was in the 1960s – about 3 billion – the scale wouldn’t be as acute, but it’s now 8 billion and growing. At least if all that plastic ended up in landfills, it wouldn’t be able to create vast islands of plastic in the world’s oceans (that’s the Pacific). So, the once irrationally despised paper is now making a comeback. So, you might want to hug that tree for different reasons! Or buy paper company stock. By the way, Union Camp later merged with International Paper, which is now the world’s largest pulp and paper company. Their future looks bright.

Copyright 2023, Patrick F. Cannon