Get the facts – not fiction – on Canadian paper bags
By Canadian Packaging Staff
Converting Sustainability Bagging/WeighingNew website aims to set the record straight on paper bags and sustainability.
The Canadian paper packaging industry’s environmental council, PPEC, today announced the launch of a new website specifically focused on paper bags: www.paperbagscanada.org.
“There is information (and a lot of misinformation) about paper bags scattered all over the place,” explains PPEC executive director, John Mullinder. “What we are trying to do here is to ensure that customers and consumers have easy access to accurate, concise, and current information on the paper bags used in Canada.”
The website has sections on the different types of paper bags and what they are made from; the renewability of Canada’s forest resource; the mills’ high use of carbon-neutral biomass or renewable energy to make bag material; and the widespread recyclability and compostability of paper bags themselves.
There is also a section on policy issues such as bag bans and fees, and life cycle analysis plus a quiz and ‘Fact and Fiction’ section.
“No, we do not race out with a chainsaw every time we need a new bag,” says Mullinder. “The forest industry actually re-grows more trees than it harvests, with almost a thousand new tree seedlings being planted on average every minute.”
He adds that every Canadian mill producing paper bag material was independently third-party certified that the wood chips and sawmill residues or recycled paper used to make bags was responsibly sourced.
“As well,” sums up Mullinder, “virtually 100 per cent of every tree harvested for kraft paper production is used and/or re-used—the logs for high-value lumber, the wood chips and other sawmill residues for pulp and papermaking, and for the energy that drives the papermaking process itself. We have a great sustainability story to tell and this is the beginning of it.”
More information may be found at www.paperbagscanada.org.
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