Volume 3, Number 1
Mar 1990

GPO Takes Affirmative Action

Last year Congress directed the Government Printing Office (GPO) to "develop a plan to identify the extent, source, and types of archival type printing matter produced inhouse and acquired commercially by the GPO, or other agencies. The plan should also include a strategy and schedule to convert this printing to alkaline paper."

On January 31 of this year Joseph Jenifer, Acting Public Printer, reported the progress to date to the Subcommittee m Legislative Appropriations of the House Committee on Appropriations:

A task force comprising GPO and JCP [joint Committee on Printing] staff members has completed a plan which provides for a survey of Federal establishments to solicit input on the types of documents to be produced that have enduring value. Commencing in fiscal year 1991, the plan calls for a 10-percent phase-in of alkaline paper usage, described in term of pounds, for Congressional publications, so that by the year 2000 alkaline paper will be the predominant type of paper used for Congressional products. For Executive Branch work, the plan calls for a 5-percent annual phase-in of alkaline paper usage, also described in terms of pounds, above the current base. This will apply to printed products procured from commercial contractors as well as blank paper sales to agencies and direct mill shipments. The plan includes operating guidelines and a 10-year timetable for actions to be followed to increase the usage of alkaline paper in the Government's publications.

... Our position an this matter is that GPO is prepared to accommodate the transition to increased use of alkaline paper Government-wide. Consequently, we fully support the alkaline paper planning efforts initiated by this Subcommittee and, as we informed Rep. Wise, would support the proposed policy contained in H.J. Res. 226.

Recycled Paper

In a related matter, GPO has initiated an affirmative program for the procurement of recycled paper products... Approximately 88 percent of the paper, envelopes, and containers covered by the guidelines that were contracted for contained at least the minimum percentage of recovered materials as specified by EPA.

At the time the EPA guidelines were announced, we were concerned that there would be a potential conflict between those guidelines and the emerging national program to encourage the use of alkaline paper for preservation purposes. While there now appears to be no technical reason that alkaline paper cannot be produced from recycled fiber, it still appears that it may be in short supply, since there apparently are only a few paper mills Currently producing such paper. However, we were encouraged to learn that Rep. Doug Walgren has introduced H.R. 3094, to make nonacidity a criterion that must be met by suppliers of recycled paper for printing and archival use by Federal agencies.

Recently, according to one source, the GPO learned that 607 of the paper it used in 1989 was alkaline. It should be very easy, then, to convert the remaining 40%. By the time they start to put their plan in operation, a year and a half or so will have passed, and most of the printing and writing paper on the market will be alkaline. Without even trying, GPO will probably find that 70% or 75% of the paper it buys in fiscal year 1991 is alkaline. If another 10% is converted each year, paper for Congressional use should be alkaline by 1995, five years of schedule. Since paper for Executive Branch will be converted at only half that rate, and since the whole country may be 100% alkaline by that than, the GPO may have to scratch pretty hard toward the end of the decade to find any acid paper to make up the remaining percentage points, unless it takes those yearly increments as minimum percentages.