Overview
Packaging Today
From transport packaging (the shipper box used to get the products to store or online consumer) to
primary packaging (what the consumer sees on the shelf), to labels, hang tags, and user inserts, paper and
paperboard packaging accounts for the greatest share of all packaging dollars spent. Paper and paperboard
production has continued to rise steadily, with accelerating rates of consumption in OECD (Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
In 1993, use of paper and paperboard in developing countries was only 32 percent of the level in
developed countries, since that time things have changed. In addition to economic growth for all world
markets (predicted in spite of today’s flat growth figures), factors like increasing literacy rates in
developing countries and global computer use increases (personal computers are currently estimated to
consume 115 billion sheets of paper annually) all have contributed to increased demand for both paper
and paperboard.1
The paper industry accounts for about 2.5% of the world’s industrial production and 2% of world trade.2
Given this industry’s heavy reliance on slow to harvest, though highly renewable resource (trees),
developing and expanding alternative pulp resources would seem to be a simple and desirable way of
supplementing pulp shortfalls quickly, or as an as-needed way of offsetting losses when wood producing
areas suffer harvest setbacks due to extended drought or fire. History though has shown, that a few well
entrenched players can stifle development of alternatives purely for their own profit to the detriment of
players further down the production chain, consumers in general, and ultimately the environment.