The Lifecycle of Paper and Cardboard:
Paper Recycling at Solvay Paperboard
by Jeff Cooper

Paper, whether it is office paper, newspaper or cardboard, is the single most recycled item in our homes and businesses. On average you use 580 pounds of paper each year! Recycling paper is easy and has a real benefit to the environment. Look around your home or office, that stack of paper three feet high you have been meaning to sort through is the equivalent of one tree that took 10-15 years to grow! For every ton of paper we recycle, we save 17 trees. In 2006, Onondaga County’s businesses and residents recycled an estimated 148,000 tons of paper, saving 2.5 million trees.

When you put paper in your blue bin at home or recycling container at work, it gets sorted and then brought to a paper mill, such as Solvay Paperboard, which is located in our backyard! There it is mixed with water and chemicals in a large pulping machine. In time, the cardboard dissolves into liquid mixture or “slurry”. This slurry is pumped onto a conveyor belt that passes through a complex drying system. Water is evaporated out of the slurry and you are left with a roll of dry paper.

Depending on the composition of the original pulp, you can end up with various types of recycled paper. Cardboard is typically recycled into linerboard, the paper that makes the ridges inside a new cardboard box. Mixed paper, including junk mail and colored paper, is generally made into tissue-grade paper. High-grade white paper is made into new writing paper.

What goes in your blue bin can be transformed into many different things; a pizza box delivered to your door, tissue paper for wrapping gifts, or even stationary for writing letters. Add life to a valuable resource: recycle your paper.