Fact: Did you know paperboard has the highest rate of recycling of any packaging material? At over 70%, our industry successfully captures and can reuse material over and over again.
Fact: out of everything that gets recycled in North America – every can, every tetra-pack, every refrigerator box and every cookie package – paper and paperboard make up the vast majority of recycled material. More than three-quarters of all paperboard in North America is made from recycled fibers!
Recycling paperboard has even more environmental impacts than just saving trees! According to the Environmental Protection Agency, when you compare one ton of recycled paperboard with one ton of virgin paperboard, the recycled paperboard saves an average of:
- 24 trees
- 7,000 gallons of water
- 60 lbs. of air pollution
- 4,100 kW of energy
- 3 cubic yards of waste in a landfill
As you can see, recycled paperboard helps preserve valuable environmental resources while still providing cartons of unrivalled quality.
| Category | Millions of Tons Recovered |
| Paper & Paperboard | 42.5 |
| Glass | 3.0 |
| Steel | 5.2 |
| Aluminum | 0.7 |
| Plastics | 2.1 |
| Wood | 1.1 |
Source: "Municipal Solid Waste in the United States - 2009 Facts and Figures" January, 2011
When it comes to sustainability, no other packaging method boasts the infrastructure, flexibility, and all-around recyclability of paperboard!