CUTTING PAPER - COUNTING - Disposal

Disposal

With very few exceptions, every sheet of paper is eventually thrown away, most of it within a few years of first being used. Some office paper recycling programs record how much copy-type paper is collected, but you are unlikely to get any useful information if your paper goes to the regular trash. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to save much money on disposal compared to other dollar savings from paper efficiency. It is important to gather the ‘total’ cost of disposal for paper as well as the ‘marginal’ cost. The difference is that reducing your trash service by 50% may not reduce the bill by the same amount, particularly if the frequency of collection remains the same.

One way that disposal can get expensive is if large amounts of paper are shredded to destroy the content on the paper. Off-site shredding costs can vary, but $500 per ton is not uncommon.

Disposal
The local landfill charges $50 per ton of material placed in it and this figure is used, which for the five tons of paper amounts to $250. Some paper is taken away for free to be recycled, and hauling costs add considerably to the disposal costs, but these are assumed to cancel each other out. In addition, about 20% (1 ton per year) of Clever Inc.'s office paper is sent out for shredding to protect customer confidentiality, at a cost of $500/year.

The U.S. tosses out about 200 million tons per year of regular solid waste (MSW, Municipal Solid Waste). This material may be recycled, composted, incinerated, or landfilled. Copy paper is therefore about 2% of regular solid waste.

Landfilling prices vary, but $50 per ton is a typical fee. At this rate, landfilling all copy paper would cost $100 million each year. Whether paper is landfilled or recycled, it needs to be collected and transported, all of which is costly. A typical cost for hauling and landfilling solid waste is closer to $100 per ton. Office paper is widely recycled, reducing these costs.

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