Taylor Karrow
Professor Wandell
Proposal Narration
25 November 2012
Using Recycled Paper: Why it Matters
Think about all the things you see while walking from one class to another. Throughout the various buildings on campus you probably see leaflets, handouts, flyers and posters. In your classes teachers often give you handouts, sometimes every day. When you’re done working on a paper or any assignment done on the computer you must print it out and turn it in. all of this adds up to a huge amount of paper usage on campus.
JCCC purchased 4 truckloads of paper in the 2012 fiscal year. With 4.2 million sheets of paper per truckload this amounts to 16.8 million sheets of paper purchased in that year. When you divide that by 365 it comes out to a staggering 35,068 sheets, or 329 pounds, of paper used per day. All of this paper is virgin paper. In other words it is paper with no recycled content.
There is a complex multistep process involved in making virgin paper. I’m not going to go into the separate steps but instead focus on the byproducts. From the point a tree is cut down to the time a shipment of paper is delivered there has been a huge amount of energy and water use as well as air and water pollution. This graphic shows some of the various hazardous chemicals that are used in the paper production process. Many of these chemicals, such as acetone, chlorides, chloroform, phenols, and sulfur end up in wastewater that is discharged by the paper mill.

Paper mills have drastic effects on the environment directly around them. They are especially devastating to local waterways. Here we see what an upstream paper mill has done to the Ouachita River in Arkansas. Paper mills consume huge amounts of water to create paper, leading to lowered water levels. After the water is used it is discharged, often at a different temperature and with pollutants. Due to the different temperature and content of the water, there are often fish kills downstream of paper mills. There are paper mills in the KC metro area. Two good examples are RiteMade Paper Converters Inc. and Georgia-Pacific Corporation. As they are contributors to citywide pollution, using recycled paper also has a local affect.
When paper is recycled it goes through a similar process as virgin paper. However, the paper must first have any foreign contaminants removed, such as staples; glue etc. and it must also have any ink removed. The paper is then turned into pulp, bleached, and formed into long rolls of paper the same way that virgin paper is formed. This process requires less bleaching, less use of hazardous chemicals, and less energy use than the production of virgin paper. In addition there are usually no chemicals containing chlorides used in the recycling process.
So we must ask ourselves, what makes recycled paper better? First, it doesn’t require any of the energy or resources that are used to get wood. This includes all of the fuel used to cut down trees and transport them. It also means that none of the air pollution and deforestation that is associated with obtaining wood happens. The process to produce recycled paper produces less solid waste than the production of virgin paper. Lastly the recycling of paper means that less landfill space is used.
Now let’s take a look at the costs. Paper purchasing at JCCC is done by requesting a bids from paper manufacturers. The school requests bids for both virgin paper and 30% PCC which

stands for post-consumer content. This means that 30% of that paper was created form virgin paper that was already used and recycled. Once all manufacturers have submitted a bid showing the price of a truckload of both virgin paper and 30% PCC, the lowest bid is selected and purchased. Here we can see the average cost as well as the highest and lowest bid for each type of paper. Currently, the recycled paper is about $2,200 more on average. However, the price has been falling year after year and is approaching the price of virgin paper.
So, if paper with recycled content is more expensive, why buy it? Buying recycled paper is an excellent way of showing people, whether students or teachers, that JCCC is promoting sustainability and is committed to reducing its environmental impact. The benefits of recycling paper are tremendous. When one ton of paper (which is used every week at JCCC) is produced from recycled pulp, it saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 7000 gallons of water, 390 gallons of oil, and 4200 kWh. It also prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants. With the massive amounts of paper a college campus uses, switching to recycled paper makes a huge difference. A switch to recycled content paper also serves as an excellent example to other educational institutions and businesses.
So in conclusion we can see that buying recycled paper will cut energy, water, and oil use, as well as reduce solid and air pollution. It shows that JCCC is committed to reducing its environmental impact and becoming a more sustainable campus. As the cost of recycled paper decreases it will continue to become a more appealing alternative. Making the switch to recycled paper is an important step to reducing solid waste, energy use, water use, and air pollution.