Fortunately, there are a number of greener paper options today. Recognize upfront that you may pay more for specialized paper. To offset this increase, consider promoting your use of specialized paper to generate more advertising dollars from green-friendly advertisers.
Other potential challenges to consider are availability, printability, and appearance. If you special order paper, you may need to provide more lead-time. In some cases, mills release specialized paper “subject to accumulation”—in other words, once they have enough orders to produce the minimum amount of paper. In terms of printability, not all specialized papers produce well on heat-set offset web presses. You can work with your Lane Press customer service representative to ensure that the paper you choose will print well on our presses. Lastly, make sure to request samples so you know what the end product will look like in terms of texture and appearance. Keep in mind that technology has come a long way, and specialized papers bear a much stronger resemblance to virgin-fiber paper. In some cases, you’ll have a hard time detecting a difference.
When considering paper in terms of its green value, start with these basics:
Recycled Content
Recycled paper contains pre-consumer and/or post-consumer waste fiber, sometimes in combination with virgin fiber. Pre-consumer waste fiber comes from materials that haven’t yet met their intended end-use by the consumer. Trim and make-ready waste are good examples. Post-consumer waste (PCW) fiber comes from consumer end products that have been used and then diverted from the solid waste stream and recycled. For example, magazines, copy paper, packaging, etc. Paper with PCW content is the most environmentally friendly since it is paper that would otherwise end up in a landfill, and because no trees are cut down to make it.
The Federal Trade Commission stipulates that a distinction be made between pre-consumer and post-consumer content on any paper, so recycled content is often expressed in an equation with the total amount of recycled content first and the amount of post-consumer material second. Example: 100/30PCW means 100% recycled content, of which 30% is post-consumer waste.
The higher the percentage of overall and post-consumer waste fiber, the greener the paper. Because recycled papers have not quite achieved the brightness and durability of virgin-fiber paper, some publishers choose to use a paper with a lower percentage of recycled fiber for their cover while using a paper with a higher percentage of recycled fiber for inside text pages.
Eco-Forestry Certification
With the help of eco-forestry certification standards, you can now know whether the paper you purchase has been produced using environmentally responsible practices. In the 1990s, organizations were created to certify manufacturers according to established sustainable forestry standards. While there are a handful of organizations worldwide that provide certification programs, two stand out: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).
Lane Press carries “chain of custody” certification from FSC. This certification verifies that the paper mill, merchant, and printer in a paper product’s supply chain have all worked to ensure that the fiber in a given paper came from FSC-certified sources.
What this means is that Lane Press customers can purchase FSC-certified paper through us and then include the FSC logo in their magazine to promote this choice. There are multiple FSC logos—seven, in fact—that reflect the composition of the paper in terms of FSC fibers, recycled fibers, and post-consumer recycled fibers. For example, one logo states that a given paper is made of 100% FSC fiber, while another denotes “Mixed Sources” (FSC, recycled, and PCW).