Small Recycled Paper Company Is Making Big Strides
New Leaf Paper, a small but fast-growing recycled paper company in San Francisco, aims to revolutionize the paper industry — a revolution that’s sorely needed. Ninety percent of printing and writing paper in the U.S. still has no recycled content at all, says Susan Kinsella, executive director of the nonprofit Conservatree. And the big pulp and paper companies (which, in 2001, produced 24.5 million tons of paper from about 450 million trees) cause a host of other environmental problems as well, from water pollution to habitat destruction to the release of high quantities of climate-altering greenhouse gases. New Leaf is doing things differently, peddling paper with high post-consumer recycled content and convincing printers that recycled paper is of high enough quality to meet their needs. The company’s biggest coup: supplying eco-friendly paper for the printing of 950, 000 copies of the latest Harry Potter book in Canada.
