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Martin County 104 Kehukee Park Road Williamston, NC 27892 (252) 792-1621 Phone (252) 792-2408 Fax MAP 
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Approximately 40% of the paper we use is recycled. Wood fiber used in paper making is itself a waste product from either lumber manufacturing or material that would otherwise be left in the woods during normal logging operations. Tops, limbs, crooked logs, under size wood, defective logs or otherwise unusable wood can be used to make paper. Recycling paper saves energy and landfill space. Recycling does not save trees. Recycled paper must be mixed with virgin fiber for most paper products. Recycled fiber is shorter than virgin fiber and therefore separates or tears easier. Short fiber does, however, make cardboard boxes that bend or stretch before breaking open. Properly blending recycled and virgin fiber can produce high quality paper products. The paper making process does, however, produces more waste treatment problems when short fibers wash through the felt that paper is formed on. Recycled paper needs to be de-inked for most paper products. Until the more environmentally friendly soy oil based inks, de-inking produced a hazardous waste product. Paper making itself is also more environmentally friendly. New pulping processes use little or no chlorine bleaching and therefore produce little or none of the extremely hazardous TCDD dioxin. All newsprint now is made without chlorine bleaching. These new processes, however results in paper that yellows much faster than before.
Revised 2/16/2006.
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