Recycled Vs. Regular Paper

If you’re anything like us, you’ve sometimes found yourself wondering why on Earth recycled and regular paper are the talk of the town these days. Then, if you’re anything like most people, you’re busy enough without having to do research and find out more about paper, so here’s where we come in!

What is the difference between regular and recycled paper?

To explain that, first we need to explain this: 

• Regular paper is made of fresh-cut trees that haven't been used for anything else before paper. Their timber is cut, milled into pulp, and formed into “regular” paper.
• Recycled paper is defined by the type of recycling that the paper went through before we went out and bought it.

To make it clearer - there are three categories of paper that can be used as materials for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste.

Mill broke (or mill scraps) is scrap paper that has never left the mill, such as cuttings, edges and crooked pieces. They’re being re-used to make new paper, which means calling it “recycled” paper is not entirely correct.

Pre-consumer waste is paper that hasn’t been directly collected by people, but was turned into boxes, packaging materials, etc. It is being sent for recycling directly from factories and warehouses.

Post-consumer waste is newspapers, office papers and similar materials that need to be processed to remove the ink and then re-sold.

Recycled paper comes with numerous advantages, such as less usage of water, energy, bleach, and chemicals, as well as the prevention of methane production and cutting down new trees.

There it is – the difference between the different types of paper in a nutshell. Interesting stuff, right? There’s a lot more to this topic than you’d think – it’s connected to issues like climate change and energy, so feel free to learn more about it!

Also – don’t forget to check out our products made from recycled paper such as paper towels, toilet paper, serviettes and tissues!