THE RECORD - New York City Bar Association

R E C Y C L E D P A P E R I N T H E L E G A L C O M M U N I T Y
forces are combining to mitigate any price and quality challenges facing
paper with recycled content. 75 Companies have made great strides in refining
the waste paper that goes into recycled content and have upgraded
deinking facilities allowing for incorporation of lower grades of wastepaper
such as curb-side newsprint for manufacturing bond, off-set and copy
paper. Use of lower grade waste paper should decrease the cost of the
product. 76
Moreover, government procurement agencies report that recycled paper
can be purchased at competitive prices. The United States Government
Printing Office (“GPO”) reported that as of April 1997 it was able to meet
the Justice Department’s request that it substitute 20% post-consumer recycled
copier paper for virgin paper whenever the virgin paper was no
more than 5% less expensive. The GPO competitively bids for its paper
requirements every three months to guarantee that its prices reflect current
market prices. It found that 20% recycled content copier paper was
offered at excellent values and well within the 5% range. 77
Similarly, a review of New York State Office of General Services’ contracts
for the purchase of recycled offset and copy paper shows prices to
be within 5% of virgin paper prices. This 5% range has been confirmed in
conversations with manufacturers and suppliers and has been adopted by
all government agencies as their price preference standard for the procurement
of recycled paper.
C. Quality
Repeated tests of recycled paper in copiers and printers have proven
its satisfactory performance. 78 A study recently sponsored by the Boston
Bar Association confirms that recycled paper performed as well as its virgin
counterparts and that the perception problem was just that.
Indeed, the last major obstacle for commercial paper recyclers to produce
clean product has been overcome. Removal of “stickies” had been a
problem which resulted in the production of a lower grade product because
the glue residue would appear as specks. This problem, however, was
75. Finchem, supra at p. 66.
76. Id.
77. GPO Remarks of John Chapman, 2nd Copier Paper Summit. Figures are not as widely
available for recycled paper containing a minimum content of 30% post-consumer fiber
because 20% post-consumer content remains the standard until the end of 1998; however,
because the standard is changing to 30% in 1999, prices are expected to remain competitive.
78. Knopf, supra at 404.
T H E R E C O R D
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