FAQs
What's the difference between post-consumer waste and recycled?
Recycled fiber is a broad term relating to the recovery and use of paper products -- irrespective of their source. Post-consumer waste refers to waste paper recovered from a specific source: club stores, supermarkets, curbside pick-ups and recycling centers. In short, post-consumer is the waste paper recovered after goods or products have met their end use. Recycled and post-consumer are often used interchangeably, but are misnomers because they have distinctly different meanings. By specifying paper with post-consumer content we keep recyclable fiber out of landfills. Pre-consumer waste is another term that refers to waste paper collected from industrial converters of paper, such as box plants. But, box plants have been recycling scrap paper for years, not really contributing to landfills. Remember, pre- and post-consumer waste are recycled fiber sources, but not all recycled fiber is post-consumer waste.
