State of the Paper Industry 2011
Steps Toward an Environmental Vision
Ten Quick Facts *** Click the thumbnail to see a large chart ***
If United States offices reduced virgin fiber copy paper use by 10% from 2009 levels, it would save 22.8 million trees, reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 481,000 cars off the road, and keep over 60,000 trucks full of solid waste out of landfills and incinerators. (Source: Paper Calculator, 2011)
Between 2007 and 2011, 66 million new acres (26.7 million hectares) of North American forest were certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an area as large as Colorado.
The average North American consumed 154 lbs (70 kgs) less paper in 2009 than in 2005, an amount equal to 15,000 sheets of copy paper, or a stack almost six and a half feet high.
Since 2009, over 82 million acres (32.2 million hectares) of Canadian forest have been fully protected from logging through national legislation and agreements, and a long-term conservation planning project has been launched for another 115 million acres (46.5 million hectares) of the Canadian Boreal Forest. Combined, these forests cover over 300,000 square miles, an area equal to the states of Texas and Maine combined.- The average person in North America at the end of the last decade consumed as much paper as 6 people combined in Asia or more than 30 people in Africa.
In 2009, China surpassed North America in total paper consumption for the first time in modern times.
As of January 2011 there were 770 papers available in North America certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Note: An updated list was published July 2011 numbering 791 papers and is available here.
The number of papers designated as “Environmentally Superior” in the Eco Paper Database by the Environmental Paper Network's stringent Paper Steps criteria doubled between 2007 and 2010.
The annual volume of paper trashed in U.S. landfills decreased by 16 million tons from 2005 to a new total of 26 million tons in 2009, or a reduction equal to a line of trash barges almost 400 miles long. Great news, but a line of barges 640 miles long is still being trashed. 
Between 2002 and 2009, exports of recovered paper from the U.S to China have tripled, making waste paper one of the largest exports of the U.S.
Learn more about the environmental impact of paper, challenges of industry transformation and recent, noteworthy conservationist achievements in the 2011 State of the Paper Industry Report.
