I recently aquired a very nice cardboard Burger King crown, which I wear proudly every chance I get. I noticed that on the side, it says, “Made from 100% recycled paperboard ‘Minimum 35% post-consumer content’”. What is recycled except post-consumer content? I’m speculating that the other 65% was “recycled” from a tree into this hat.
Get a load of this. In order to be able to say, " 100% Recycled", it has to be made of paper that has made it through most, if not all, of the paper-making PROCESS. It does NOT need to be paper that was used, out there in the world.
IN short, 35% Post-Consumer is the stuff we all assume is recycled paper. The other 65%? You make paper, you IMMEDIATELY shred it back into the mix, but are allowed to say, " I’ve recycled all of this paper, right here at my mill !".
That’s how it was explained to me, at Stone Container Corporation, a HUGE supplier of paper, cardboard, and brown paper bags… such is the fancypants legalese wording, that they are allowed to get away with this.
Cartooniverse
If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel.
Well let’s clarify, to be fair to the paper companies. None of them (especially Smurfit-Stone!) is so profitable that it can afford to throw newly-produced virgin paper back into the process just to slap a “recycled” label on it. Paper (and plastic and steel and whatnot) that is “recycled” but not “post-consumer recycled” generally comes from trimmings, quality rejects and other waste that occurs as a normal part of the manufacturing process.
So your BK Crown was made from 35% (or more) paper that had been gathered from consumers (including industrial users, who take better care of their boxes than the pizza box you spilled beer on before bundling it with the junk mail and magazines) and 65% (or less) leavings from the shop floor.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
Manhattan’s got it right.
So no toilet paper?
I used to run a weekly football pool, where participants would select the winners for the upcoming weekend’s games. Every Friday I would hand out a synopsis sheet of everyone picks. At the bottom, I put a little logo of a pine tree with the “No” circle (circle with a slash) over it. Next to that I put the statement: “This paper made from freshly killed trees.”
Well, I thought it was funny…
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
Yep. Toilet paper, too. Not as input, of course, but as output. Marcal is a producer in our area that makes TP and other home paper products from recycled paper. I don’t know how much of that is post-consumer.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine