Would you like to get into the media? How about turning old newspapers into housing insulation that’s cheaper than fiberglass? It’s a practical way to organize your newspaper career and make a difference.
Venture capitalists also can give you more information on the little known and alternative profitable uses of recycled paper possibilities. Journalism jobs may be fewer in Sacramento, but not recycled newspapers. Just go in the backdoor researching recycled paper possibilities. You’ll still have newsprint on your fingers. And you’ll be in the culture of media.
Newspaper recycling can be started by anyone able to haul old newspapers to recycling centers. Developing new uses for old newsprint is big business. Let’s look at the last two decades. As newspapers were merging at the start of internet traffic and digital media and journalism graduates were competing for the fewer jobs available, newspaper recycling on a global basis was expanding.
In 1994, giant wood products firms, like Weyerhaeuser, found that when used as raw material, recycling paper is cheaper than cutting trees. Businesses aren’t dumping old newspapers in landfills anymore.
By 1995, local collection centers began paying curbside scavengers $100 to $150 per ton for old newspapers. Recycled paper is in high demand now, to be turned at low-cost into mulch for spray-on gardening, toys, stationery, greeting cards, party favors, and toilet tissue.
Newspapers are recycled into kitty litter, cellulose insulation, and cellmulch–a mixture of fertilizer, shredded newsprint, and grass seed. Crushed cardboard is recycled into pencils. Milk cartons are recycled into fine writing paper.
Jeff JohnsonJeff Johnson, plant manager at Basic Fibres, a Los Angeles recycling center, sees a line of people with old newspapers to recycle at his door, which opens as early as 5:30 a.m. The sudden price increase of paper this year helped to create a new recycling business boom nationwide and globally.
Prices of computer paper, newsprint, and other paper products have doubled in the last year and will rise again in a few months. As paper becomes more expensive, companies using paper, such as publishers and cardboard container manufacturers are turning to recycled paper to beat the high cost of cutting trees. Wood products companies are investing billions in opening more paper reprocessing mills.
Where do you begin if you’re thinking of opening a newspaper recycling business? Resource Recycling magazine and Paper Recycler Newsletter are excellent sources of information on what’s currently profitable to recycle for an individual in a local area. Seventy percent of the people in the United States today make use of recycling programs, according to Resource Recycling.
Back in the mid 1990s, the publication, Paper Recycler Newsletter announced that the United States recycled 38.9 million tons of paper. These publications are highly recommended to consult first. See the sites, recycle.cc, Recycling Today Media Group – Recycling Today magazine, and Paper Recycling Online.
By a 1993 executive order, all printing and writing paper used by the U.S. government had to be produced from 20 percent recovered paper. This new government demand for recycled newspaper provided more customers for newspaper recyclers.
You could put in your bid with the government to provide the recovered paper. For further information, write to: the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC; or the Global Recycling Network.
The biggest customers for individuals who want to recycle newspapers are overseas businesses–exporting recyclables of all kinds. Two decades ago almost eight million tons of recovered paper went from the U.S. to South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Maybe in this decade the first step in getting into the media big-time is to recycle newspaper globally?
To get involved in this recycled newspaper export business, get in touch with the American Forest and Paper Products Association. Most of this recycled paper left from the world’s largest port for exporting recyclables—Los Angeles.
Reach out to the Global Recycling Network. They’re the most comprehensive Recycling Information Resource available on the internet. GRN offers a virtual marketplace and databases to help businesses around the world to find possible trading partners for the sale of recyclable goods–raw materials or industrial byproducts, including a wide variety of used or rebuilt recyclables.
Next, join wood products industry associations and go to their meetings. The wood products industry has developed brand new, cost-efficient used paper-processing machines. Go to the wood products companies as the second step after you read the trade magazines and newsletters. After that, check with the exporting firms.
In the past decade these wood products processing companies have opened 86 new mills. Many are now on the Internet and very approachable for information online.
Start out by doing informational interviews to get tips from the biggest–Weyerhaeuser on what they offer their customers. With their 28 recycling facilities across the United States and Canada, Weyerhaeuser is now buying back old paper from customers, such as K-Mart.
The companies to contact for informational interviews only–to find out how they manage paper waste products, what needs they serve in the community, and what benefits/advantages they offer their customers–also include WMX Technologies, the nation’s largest waste management corporation and Browning-Ferris Industries, their competitor.
Why should you contact these recycled paper giants for information on what services they offer their community or customers? They opened so many new recycling centers. So getting into the media through the culture of recycling is one way to work with newspapers, at least through a very practical, hands-on back door approach to a media career in newspaper work.
You could even write about recycling or organize recycling efforts globally of newspapers for trade publications. A lot of news is going digital. What happens to newspapers or cardboard boxes? They’re sent overseas and recycled.
An increase in recycling facilities reflects an increase in the demand for recycled products. Forty percent of all paper used in this country is recovered and recycled. The paper industry wants to take 10 percent of waste paper away from offices.
So much less trash is ending up in landfills now, that dump prices have fallen. The waste companies who own the dumps are losing money fast, whereas recycling has become the fastest-growing component of Browning-Ferris Industries. Those who aren’t recycling old newspapers are recycling heavy plastic grocery bags. Soon there may be laws coming to your area where you’ll have to bring your own shopping bag or tote to grocery stores to carry home your food.
To start a newspaper recycling business, you need a pickup truck or a similar vehicle to collect the waste products. The best places to search are the municipal recycling bins in your local area.
For information, you might research the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), for example. When did it open an electronic marketplace for trading recyclable products of all types?
Use your computer to find buyers online. For now, you can check out CBOT or Browning-Ferris Industries. Browning-Ferris Industries increased their recycling facilities from 97 in 1993 to 112 in the mid 1990s. Research what they are doing today as far as recycling. Do they still have a consulting service including market feasibility studies, program design, and setup as they did in the 1990s?
At WMX Technologies, in the early 1990s there were only 116 centers. By the mid-1990s, the number increased to 151. What’s happening today? Check out recycling at Global Computer Systems. Do they still do consulting with expertise in waste paper? For a list of consultants check out Global Recycling Network.
