An interview with Tom Pollock of the Portland based non-profit environmental consulting company Metafore:
DH: Do you have examples of when increasing the recycled content would have been the less-sustainable option?
TP: One example would be buying a recycled paper product made at a paper mill overseas. In the U.S., over 30 percent of recovered paper from your blue bins is being bought by manufacturers and shipped overseas to countries like China. These mills may be modern, but if the energy to run these mills comes from burning dirty coal, that has serious implications.
These mills aren't regulated like paper mills in North America. So, there are situations where buying recycled paper could have a bigger environmental impact than buying paper from a local supplier that doesn't offer recycled content. As in any important choice -- you have to consider the trade-offs.
