Packaging & the Enviroment
All of us are very concerned about the negative environmental impact that our industrial, consumptive society has on our planet. Paper based packaging is subject to particular concern because it is perceived as destroying our forests to produce it as well as dramatically increasing the volume of material going into our landfill sites. Please read through the information on this page (and its links) to gain a positive perspective on this vital industry.
Facts about Canadian Forests
Canada is a land of trees, and forest resources have played an important part in our nation’s development. Canada ranks Number One in the global export of forest products. One in seventeen jobs in Canada is directly or indirectly tied to the forest industry. Approximately 350 Canadian towns are largely dependent on the forest industry and eighty percent of our aboriginal communities are located in Canada’s forest zone.
Our forests are managed under the jurisdiction of the provinces that set the legal and regulatory authorities. National coordination of forest-related initiatives is managed by the federal government.
Canada is the only country in the world whose forest products association has made mandatory third-party verified sustainable forest management certification to Canadian Standards Association, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative a condition of membership.
Our forest resource base is immense, representing just under half of Canada’s land mass and reaches from coast to coast. Approximately 28% of the total forested area in Canada is managed for timber production. However, only 1/4 of 1% is actually harvested each year. This is substantially less than the amount lost to pests and fires.
The provinces set annual allowable cuts based on the sustainability of the forest resource. This takes into account losses due to forest fires, insect infestation, disease, and harvesting. The latest figures indicate the paper industry as a whole harvested only 52% of the hardwoods and 93% of the softwoods that the provinces said were sustainable levels.
The amount of trees available for harvest each year in Canada is actually growing, due to improved forest management and silviculture. Over a 15 year period the volume of commercial wood fibre has increased by 937 million cubic metres, despite harvesting, fires and insect destruction.
Canadian science and technology to care for this important resource has advanced rapidly through an ongoing commitment of both government and industry to research and innovation.
Facts about Recycling
The corrugated box is one of the most widely recycled of all packaging materials. Approximately 90% of the fibre in a Canadian-made corrugated box comes from recycled used boxes, chips, shavings and sawdust from logging and wood processing operations.
A common perception is that all packaging ends up in the dump shortly after use. This is far from the truth. Much packaging is designed for long life. For example, many corrugated boxes are widely used for filing purposes and these will ever end up in a dump or be recycled because they are continuously re-used. Paper-based packaging is, in fact, quite widely re-used. The 1996 National Packaging Survey estimated re-use at 14%, most of it corrugated containers by the wholesale trade. Corrugated containers are both used and re-used for storage; for moving furniture long after the original product is removed; and for carrying groceries from store
Most corrugated is used to ship raw materials and products to factories, warehouses, retail stores and offices. And this is where most of the boxes to be recycled come from. One major Ontario supermarket chain, for example, recycles four times as many old corrugated boxes as all the municipalities of Ontario put together. But corrugated is also widely collected from homes across Canada. More tonnes of corrugated are collected nationally than any other packaging material. In fact, over a quarter of residential packaging captured for recycling is corrugated. According to the National Packaging Survey commissioned by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, the national recovery rate (re-use and recycling) for corrugated was over 80%.
Even as the recycling rate for corrugated is increased (out of the home and out of factories and supermarkets) it will never be enough to supply the demands of Canadian mills have for these old boxes. To meet customer demand for paper with recycled content we import almost 2 million tonnes of recovered paper (mostly used boxes) each year, largely from the United States. Canada simply cannot supply enough.
| Canada’s total land area | 921.5 million hectares |
| Area covered by forested land: | 417.6 million hectares |
| Canada’s share of the world’s forests: | 10 percent |
| Canada’s share of the world’s boreal forests: | 35 percent |
| Canada’s share of the world’s rain forests: | 20 percent |
| Forest land owned by governments: | 94 percent |
| Forests managed for timber purposes: | 119 million hectares |
| Canadian forests harvested each year: | 1 million hectares |
| Number of seedlings planted each year: | 640 million |
| Forests replanted each year: | 430,000 hectares |
| Forests naturally regenerated each year: | 530,000 hectares |
| Forests direct seeded each year: | 40,000 Hectares |
| Area of forests lost to fire each year: | 3 million hectares |
| Area of forests affected by insect defoliation and disease each year: | 7 million hectares |
