At Same Day Printers, we believe in looking after our environment. While we gladly offer high-quality printing on recycled stocks for our clients, having a clear ecological conscience involves understanding how the modern paper industry actually works.
🤔 What Does “Recycled Paper” Actually Mean?
Not all recycled paper is what it seems. True post-consumer recycled paper comes from material that has been put into household recycling bins, collected, and sent back to a paper mill to be processed.
However, paper mills have always recycled their own internal manufacturing waste long before consumer demand started. There is also pre-consumer waste, such as un-sold magazines or the exact production off-cuts we manage right here at our Christchurch shop. Every single scrap we generate goes straight into a commercial recovery system to be repurposed.
⚡ The Realities of the Recycling Process
- Extra Processing Costs: Paper recycling requires heavy de-inking, re-bleaching, and cleaning to make fibers reusable. These rigorous mechanical processes are why recycled paper remains more expensive.
- Fiber Blends: Due to fiber degradation during processing, standard recycled commercial paper rarely consists of more than 30% recycled content.
🌲 The FSC: A Better Way to Protect Our Forests
If you worry about the world’s forests, there is an incredibly robust solution: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC enforces the strictest environmental and social requirements in the world, ensuring forests are managed responsibly to meet ecological, cultural, and community needs for future generations.
Today, it is almost impossible for paper mills to trade internationally without strict FSC certification.
Key FSC Core Requirements Include:
- ✅ Strict prohibition on converting natural forests into commercial plantations.
- ✅ Absolute respect for international workers’ rights and conditions.
- ✅ Universal protection of Human Rights and Indigenous peoples living in those habitats.
- ✅ Complete ban on the use of hazardous forestry chemicals.
- ✅ Zero-tolerance for corruption, ensuring absolute adherence to local environmental laws.
- ✅ Safe management of culturally sacred sites or endangered wildlife zones.
Want to print your next business run sustainably? Talk to the Same Day Printers team about selecting verified FSC-certified or recycled stocks for your project!