If "saving" trees isn't the issue, why do we want to recycle paper?

We recycle paper mainly to save landfill space.

Paper is one of the few consumer products that is fairly easy and inexpensive to recycle. It can be made into many new products including corrugated boxes, packaging, newsprint, tissue, and writing paper, among other things.

Helping to reduce the amount of paper in landfills is an important task. Since each of us uses an average of 700 pounds of paper products per year, paper makes up almost a third of the material which goes into landfills.

The recycling process also produces recycled fiber, a valuable product. Countries with a plentiful supply of recycled fiber can not only use it to make their own recycled paper, they also can send it to other nations to provide them with fiber to make paper products. In this way, an old newspaper recycled in the U.S. can end up as part of a box made in Africa - quite a wise use of a tree!

Think about all the paper products you use every day. Many of these can be recycled to make other useful products. In the U.S., more paper is recycled than is sent to landfills, and more paper is recovered for recycling than all glass, aluminum, and plastics combined