Paper Production and Consumption Facts

Global and U.S. Paper Production and Consumption Statistics

• Of the global wood harvest for “industrial uses” (everything but fuelwood) 42% goes to paper
production, a proportion expected to grow by more than 50 percent in the next 50 years.
(Abramovitz, “Paper Cuts”, WorldWatch Institute, 1999, p. 124)

•
Industrialized nations, with 20 percent of the world’s population, consume 87 percent of the
world’s printing and writing papers. (Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, United Nations
Environment Programme, Keynote Address UNEP’s 7th International High Level Seminar on
Cleaner Production, 29-30 April 2002)

• Global production in the pulp, paper and publishing sector is expected to increase by 77%
from 1995 to 2020 (OECD Environmental Outlook, 2001, p.215)

• The pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of water used in industrial
activities in OECD countries and is the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, after
the chemical and steel industries (OECD Environmental Outlook, p. 218)

• Paper pulp exports from Latin America from forests converted into plantations and from the
harvesting and conversion of tropical and subtropical forests are expected to grow 70 percent
between 2000 and 2010. (Mark Payne, “Latin America Aims High for the Next Century”,
Pulp and Paper International, 1999)

• Most of the world’s paper supply, about 71 percent, is not made from timber harvested at tree
farms but from forest-harvested timber, from regions with ecologically valuable, biologically
diverse habitat. (Toward a Sustainable Paper Cycle: An Independent Study on the
Sustainability of the Pulp and Paper Industry, 1996)

• Tree plantations host about 90 percent fewer species than the forests that preceded them.
(Allen Hershkowitz, Bronx Ecology,2002, p. 75)

US Paper and Paperboard Production, 2000 (AF&PA)
Newsprint
8%
Boxboard
21%
Printing/Writing Paper
28%
Containerboard
31%
Packaging Paper
5%
Tissue
7%


Printing and Writing Grade and End Use Snapshots USA

Printing & Writing Paper
Snapshot
Tons
(000)
End Use Uncoated Free-sheet
Snapshot
Tons
(000)
Uncoated free-sheet
13,898
Office Reprographics
4,656
Coated Paper
9,615
Commercial Printing
3,297
Uncoated Groundwood
1,832
Business Forms
1,892
Printing & Writing Total
26,935
Envelopes
1,430


Books
626
U.S. Statistics. Source:
AF&PA, 2000

U.S. Statistics. Source:
AF&PA, 2000



World’s Top 30 Producing and Consuming Countries, 2000 (Pulp and Paper
International)

Paper & Paperboard Production
Pulp Production
Paper &
Paperboard Consumption
Country Metric Tons
(000)
Country Metric Tons
(000)
Country
Metric Tons
(000)
USA
85,495
USA
57,002
USA
92,355
Japan
31,828
Canada
26,411
China
36,277
China
30,900
China
17,150
Japan
31,736
Canada
20,689
Finland
11,910
Germany
19,112
Germany 18,182
Sweden
11,517
United
Kingdom
12,684
Finland
13,509
Japan
11,399
France
11,376
Sweden
10,786
Brazil
7,463
Italy
10,942
France
9,991
Russia
5,814
Canada
7,476
Korea
9,308
Indonesia 4,089
Korea
7,385
Italy
9,000
Chile
2,841
Spain
6,922










Paper Impacts on Forests: Global and Regional Statistics

U.S. Southeast

• The Southern US, which contains the most biologically diverse forests in North America
(Ricketts, Taylor H. et al, Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America, Island Press,
Washington DC (1999)), is the largest paper-producing region in the world. (USDA
Forest Service Southern Forest Resource Assessment, 2001)
• The paper industry is the largest consumer of forests in the Southern US, currently
logging an estimated 5 million acres of forests (an area the size of New Jersey) each year.
(USFS SFRA, 2001)
• While the Southern U.S. contains 31% of the nation’s timber inventories, it is harvesting
54% of the nation’s total timber volumes. (Ted Williams, “False Forests,” Mother Jones
May/June 2000, p. 73)
• Forest Service, monoculture tree plantations feeding the 156 chip mills in the South (110
of them built since 1990) now make up almost 40 percent of all pine stands in the
southeastern U.S., and within twenty years, if current trends continue, tree plantations
will make up 70 percent. (Williams, 2000, p. 73)
• 75% of the plantations established in the last 20 years have been established at the
expense of natural forests (USFS, SFRA 2001) and the conversion of forests to
plantations is the leading cause of freshwater wetland loss in the region. (US Fish &
Wildlife Service, Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Coterminous United States 1986
to 1997.)
• Rural communities where the paper industry is concentrated are economically worse off
than other rural communities, experiencing higher levels of poverty and unemployment
and lower expenditures on public education. (USFS SFRA, 2001)



British Columbia, Canada

• Temperate forests are the most endangered forest type on the planet (World Resources
Institute, 1997)
• Temperate rainforests only ever covered 0.2% of the world’s land surface (Ecotrust and
Conservation International, 1992)
• Temperate rainforests are truly ancient forests and contain some of the world’s oldest
trees.
• BC is home to a quarter of the world’s remaining ancient temperate rainforests (WRI,
1997)
• One out of eight animal species in BC is at risk of extinction, according to the BC
Ministry of Environment. Logging was identified as one of the primary contributing
causes (BC Ministry of Environment, State of the Environment Report 2000).
• BC’s Ministry of Forest data states that the rate of logging in BC is unsustainable (BC
Ministry of Forests)
• 90% of the logging in British Columbia (BC) occurs in ancient forests (BC Ministry of
Forests).
• Over 40% of the trees cut in BC are used to produce paper (Markets Initiative, 2001)

Indonesia

• Pulp production has more than quadrupled in the last decade, more than 1.4 million
hectares of natural forest have been replaced by plantations. (Abramovitz, 1999, p. 25)

• Satellite data shows that 80 percent of the fires that burned over 2 million hectares of
Indonesian forest in 1997 and 1998 were set mainly to clear land for palm oil and
pulpwood plantations. (“The Year the World Caught Fire”, Nature December 1997)

Environmental Benefits of Recycled Paper (see also Environmental Defense’s Q & A)

Switching from virgin to recycled content paper results in many benefits. Research by the
Alliance for Environmental Innovation has shown that each ton of recycled fiber that displaces a
ton of virgin fiber used in coated groundwood paper (stock used in magazines):

• Reduces total energy consumption by 27%
• Reduces net greenhouse gas emission by 47% and reduces particulate emissions by 28%
• Reduces wastewater by 33%, reduces solid waste by 54%, and reduces wood use by
100%

30% Postconsumer Copy Paper
One ton (40 cases) saves the equivalent of:

• 7.2 trees [forty feet in height and 6-8 inches in diameter] (Conservatree,
www.conservatree.org)
• 2,100 gallons of water, 1,230 kw hours of electricity, and 18 pounds of air pollution
(Californians Against Waste, www.cawrecycles.org)

100% Postconsumer Copy Paper
One ton (40 cases) saves the equivalent of:

• 24 trees (forty feet in height and 6-8 inches in diameter) (Conservatree)
• 7,000 gallons of water, 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity, and 60 pounds of air pollution
(Californians Against Waste)



Other Resources

Endangered Forest Definitions (PDF)– A July 2005 report, Ecological Components of
Endangered Forests, by ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council,
and Rainforest Action Network that thoroughly defines the concepts and science behind
identifying forests as “endangered.”

Paper Cuts – an excellent primer on global paper production industry and the
environmental impacts of the world’s increasing consumption; from our colleagues at the
World Watch Institute

Bronx Ecology: Blueprint for a New Environmentalism – The story of Dr. Allen
Hershkowitz’s (unfortunately, failed) attempt to create the Bronx Community Paper
Company. Its purpose: to build a state-of-the-art paper recycling plant in the heart of the
Bronx, where it could recycle a major portion of New York City's wastepaper and
produce environmentally beneficial jobs in the process.

FSC certified paper – The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) now certifies the virgin
pulp component of paper, just like other forest products that it certifies. In order to use
the FSC logo as an “environmental claim” on paper, the product must have flowed
through the FSC “chain-of-custody” from the FSC-certified forest, to a paper
manufacturer, merchant, and finally printer who have FSC chain-of-custody
certification.

Watershed Media – Watershed Media produces action-oriented, visually dynamic,
communication projects to influence the transition to a green society.