What Happens to All That Collected and Recycled Office Paper?
As more and more businesses and commercial enterprises see the value in going green, .paper-recycling programs are springing up across the nation. Recycling of paper in Florida is more popular than ever. So you may wonder, where is all of that recycled paper actually going? Does the copypaper or cardboard I recycle in Florida today, become the office paper I am writing on tomorrow? Actually most of it does not.

Companies such as Miami Waste Paper, collect large volume recyclable paper and cardboard materials, and sell it as raw material mostly to tissue mills, boxboard mills, and overseas paper manufacturers.

Ron Novas with Miami Waste Paper says the reason that most recycled office paper finds "new life" as something other than copypaper is the ink that is printed on most office waste. Deinking of Xerox and other office papers is an expensive process, and it is never 100%. Also office paper waste is a mixture of a variety of paper types including envelops, bound reports, and any number of other documents that contain inks and glues that offer contaminates. This makes it difficult to recycle into printable office paper for laser printers copy machines etc. However such contamination and ink problems cause less of an issue when being used to make tissue paper, newsprint paper, .packaging, or to be used by overseas mills.

Still this should not in any way be perceived as a reason not to recycle office waste in Florida or anywhere else. Quite the contrary say the experts at Miami Waste Paper. Everyday new technologies are being introduced to make the deinking process more efficient. There will very soon come a time when recycled office paper will play a much greater role in the manufacture of fine paper products. Already there is much more recycled material in white papers, and laser print papers. All of the top names in office paper continue to add more and more recycled office papers to their product lines.

In the meantime recycling of office paper continues to be a great idea for any company or business, no matter where the post-consumer paper eventually winds up being reused. Making any kind of paper with post-consumer recycled office paper decreases greenhouse gas emissions, which can lead to global climate change. It is more efficient to use recycled paper in the manufacturing process, so the papermill burns less fossil fuels, reducing its carbon footprint. .And of course office paper recycling saves trees reducing deforestation.