Volume 4, Number 5
Nov 1991

Recycled Alkaline Paper in Canada

In September, the Canada Communication Group-Printing Services (which corresponds to the USGPO) issued a guide to Canadian recycled printing and copy papers, which clearly identifies all alkaline papers listed, and tells what weights and sizes they are available in. The list is only four pages long, because there are so few fine paper mills in Canada. The four pages are headed:

Uncoated Canadian Recycled Offset Papers
Uncoated Canadian Recycled Text Papers
Uncoated Canadian Recycled Coverstocks
Canadian Recycled Copy Papers

A list of coated papers was being prepared at press time.

Nine companies make all the fine paper in Canada; five of them (Domtar, Eddy, Island Paper, Noranda and Rolland) are on this list. Two of those five companies make nothing but alkaline paper.

Canadian recycled paper regulations are more strict than those in the U.S. While recycled paper in either country may include wet and dry broke, precommercial waste (e.g., trimmings from the sheeting process) or forest residue, none of these may count in Canada toward the required 50% recycled content; postconsumer waste must be 10% or better.

A paper that is 70% recycled by Canadian standards would be only 55% by U.S. standards, because Canadian percentages are figured on the weight of the paper, not the weight of the total fiber, as in the U.S. It is not easy to meet these requirements, because few Canadian mills are close to urban sources of waste paper. They have to truck much of it in from large population centers in the U.S. But the n-tills have strong incentives to meet the requirements: access to the market for recycled paper south of the border, and the right to use the EcoLogo, symbol of certification by the government's Environmental Choice Program.

Additional information is available from Neville Woodman, Canada Communication Group-Printing Services, National Printing Bureau Bldg., Rm. A-3405, 45 Sacre-Coeur Blvd., Hull, PQ, KlA OS7, Canada (819/997-7210; fax 819/ 956-6025).