Opinions on recycled paper

[Ollie1981]

I suppose recycled paper is the same as virgin paper in the respect that by and large you get what you pay for.

I've seen some papers that are up to 50% recycled content that are actually pretty good. But they aren't the cheapest recycled stock available by a long chalk. The good stuff costs more to produce and it is tougher to produce a high quality end product with recycled paper than with virgin wood pulp.

I guess it's whether your customer's primary concern by buying recycled paper is social responsibility or cost. Most of the crap recycled paper I see is at customers I know are having their budgets squeezed so they literally buy the cheapest "copier grade" white paper available, which, by default is usually recycled.

The other problem I forgot to mention with the atrocious green, bleach stink paper is what happens when they try and put it through their Venus (Gestetner CS555) colour copier. The Martini MP7500s hate this paper bad enough as it is, but they generally go along with the joke. In the Venus, this stuff just concertinas every 7-8 sheets at the fuser exit and for some reason it destroys the fuser belt after 50k. It was absolutely impossible to get a decent looking colour copy on it due in part to the green-ness of the paper totally messing up the colour balance and the other part due to the high mosture content causing poor transfer/fusing. They have been told to keep this paper well away from the Venus otherwise they'll have to pay for everything it prematurely destroys, but most times when I've been onsite fixing one of the MP7500s, one of the customers will tap my shoulder and ask if I can get a jam out of the CS555, I'll pull out the tray and lo and behold, there's some "Purewhite" in it.

[Lea@ABM]

Im no scientist but isnt it more environmentally friendly to use virgin paper than recycled?

More tree's are planted everyday due to the demand for paper that would not otherwise be on the planet so surely thats a good thing. Also paper is made from fast growing softwood like pine, sustainably farmed in Scandinavia and Canadian climates and NOT the endangered rain forests of the tropics like some customers suggest when running test copies!

Im not against recycling and would encourage more of it but just because it says 'recycled' it doesnt mean its always the greenest option and as paper is bio-degradeable anyway im sure it does more harm collecting it up, transporting it about to some factory with machines that use more fossil fuel to turn it back into something that causes copiers to jam and then an engineer has to get in his car and drive to fix it using more fossil fuel.....

I dont know, maybe im just being silly and as I say, im no scientist, but its got to be worth thinking about hasnt it?

[paulg]

Im no scientist but isnt it more environmentally friendly to use virgin paper than recycled?

More tree's are planted everyday due to the demand for paper that would not otherwise be on the planet so surely thats a good thing. Also paper is made from fast growing softwood like pine, sustainably farmed in Scandinavia and Canadian climates and NOT the endangered rain forests of the tropics like some customers suggest when running test copies!

Im not against recycling and would encourage more of it but just because it says 'recycled' it doesnt mean its always the greenest option and as paper is bio-degradeable anyway im sure it does more harm collecting it up, transporting it about to some factory with machines that use more fossil fuel to turn it back into something that causes copiers to jam and then an engineer has to get in his car and drive to fix it using more fossil fuel.....

I dont know, maybe im just being silly and as I say, im no scientist, but its got to be worth thinking about hasnt it?

I go along with that and have said as much.

Like when people reuse paper.

I was last year at a university surrounded by people with two many qualfications in the admin section.
They said oh we want to save the planet blah blah. But puttingrecyled paper copies though which were on already used at least once and some twice already. Was mucking up the machines meaning we had to change more parts (hot rollers, feed tyres than was being saved. Of course using more electricty and toner.

They stopped doing it and we saw the reduction in part spend straight off and had far less calls like you say by using better quality paper which was only part recycled we did more good for the enviroment.