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While the most environmentally
responsible tissue products are
made from 100 percent recycled
post-consumer content, the EPA’s recycled
product content standard for 2009
called for 40-100 percent recovered fiber
and 40-60 percent post-consumer content
for commercial-industrial paper towels.
As post-consumer materials are the targeted
feedstock in paper products, and because
most manufacturers will use
additional recovered materials as a matter
of course, Conervatree, a consultancy that
provides environmentally sound paper options,
says buyers should use a post-consumer-
only standard.
And it says that paper products with less
than 100 percent recycled content that include
forest fibers should use only those from forests certified to be managed to
high environmentally sustainable criteria.
Such certifications from organizations like
the Forest Stewardship Initiative, which
maintains a standard that promotes responsible
forest management on suppliers’
lands and a chain-of-custody certification,
tell buyers how much certified fiber is in a
specific product.
Under SFI fiber sourcing certification,
paper manufacturers must have an auditable
procurement process for fiber they
buy from these lands, and, among other
things, encourage landowners to reforest
areas that have been harvested. They call
for use of best management practices to
protect water quality; protect important
habitat elements for wildlife; and use the
services of qualified resource and logging professionals.
“North America depends on family forest
owners who are dedicated to responsible
forest management,” said Deborah
Baker, Georgia-Pacific’s vice president
for sustainable forestry. “Georgia-Pacific
may not own forestlands but we can have
a positive influence on thousands of acres
through the SFI program, and that’s important
to our company, our customers
and our nation’s forests.”
According to Conservatree, about onethird
of the U.S. tissue market is “Away
From Home.” This market includes towels,
toilet tissue, facial tissue, napkins and industrial
wipers. Most tissue manufacturers
make all of these products for “consumer”
and “commercial-institutional” markets.
Like towels, toilet tissue can be dispensed in
jumbo rolls to reduce maintenance costs.
Away from home tissue products are
bought by building owners, institutions
and janitorial services directly from distributors.
They are usually bulk-packaged
and often tied to marketing specialized
dispensers that encourage brand loyalty.
Competition usually revolves around
price, compatibility with dispensers, and
ease of replenishment.
Reduction Opportunities
Through a special report on paper
towels by Nancy VandenBerg, conservatree
says the first source reduction
opportunity is with the paper itself.
Some paper bleaching processes use
forms of chlorine, which can pollute.
If you currently use bleached towels,
consider unbleached towels or semibleached
towels. If you reduce bleaching,
you reduce paper costs.
Roll Towels: Your towel vendors will help you calculate the potential
waste and cost savings when you evaluate
switching to roll towels. Nearly all
have calculation models.
The potential reduced waste, by
weight, for paper towels is difficult to calculate
without specific examples. Actual
weight of the paper toweling and any pattern
on the toweling affects roll weight.
Packaging waste reduction depends
on the types of cases used (weight of
corrugated boxes or stretch film wrap)and the types of individual package and
roll wraps.
Roll towels require less storage space
because packaging is more compact. This
additional benefit is hard to quantify but
it may be extremely helpful in jurisdictions
where space is at a premium.
Increasingly, government agencies,
universities, school systems and hospitals,
among others, are specifying recycled
content tissue and towels. In fact,
the U.S. federal government requires that
any tissue products bought with its funds,
either by its agencies or by contractors,
grantees or any other federally-funded
purchasers, follow EPA guidelines when
buying paper products.
Conservatree says, the away from
home tissue industry meets this growing
environmental market by including
at least some (often high) recycled content
in more than 70 percent of its tissue
options.
Cost
Recycled paper towels are less expensive
or competitively priced with
virgin alternatives. Bleaching introduces
costs in the manufacturing
process and may add to environmental
pollution depending on the bleaching
process used. Semi-bleached and natural
towels are less expensive than
bleached towels.
Standard Specifications
Paper towel specifications include
requirements for the paper toweling itself
as well as for the type of dispenser.
Paper: Good paper towel specifications
require no objectionable odor and
include the recycled content standard,
type of paper (bleached, semi-bleached
or unbleached), basis weight, size, core
size for roll towels and the number of
feet per roll or towels per package.
Since towels are ordered by case, many
specifications include the number of
towels or rolls per case.
Ownership Costs: You may
want to estimate long-term savings by evaluating ownership
costs. Include costs for: dispensers, installation, labor
for dispenser maintenance and towel replacement, storage
requirements, towel supplies and disposal.
Experts say the least
expensive option is purchasing dispensers outright. However,
it may take a year or two to amortize the initial costs and
you may lose warranties on the dispensers. ❑
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