Last week, just as I was working on a new cardboard chair, there was an article in the Chicago Reader called The Floating Forest, about the strange trip undertaken by our wastepaper. Thirty years ago, most of America's recycled paper was processed domestically, including a number of large mills throughout the Midwest. Beginning in the nineties, a Hong Kong entrepreneur, Cheung Yan, began filling empty shipping containers with wastepaper and shipping them back to China. There, her factories turned them into cardboard to make boxes for TVs, computers, cellphones, and so the cycle continued.
Baled wastepaper is now an internationally traded commodity. In 2008, prices plunged as the global recession put a crimp in consumer spending. Newspapers, another large paper consumer, have seen their readership shrink as news moves online. Recently, however, prices are back up in the face of Asian demand. With one ton trading at about $100, New York has seen a rise in the theft of baled paper. China, whose forest cover suffered over the last fifty years of industrialization, has a seemingly insatiable demand for the stuff. The paper-less society promised by the internet hasn't materialized, and, worldwide, consumption doubled between 1980 and 2000.
Baled wastepaper is now an internationally traded commodity. In 2008, prices plunged as the global recession put a crimp in consumer spending. Newspapers, another large paper consumer, have seen their readership shrink as news moves online. Recently, however, prices are back up in the face of Asian demand. With one ton trading at about $100, New York has seen a rise in the theft of baled paper. China, whose forest cover suffered over the last fifty years of industrialization, has a seemingly insatiable demand for the stuff. The paper-less society promised by the internet hasn't materialized, and, worldwide, consumption doubled between 1980 and 2000.
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| Wastepaperin'. |
