Home Pulp & Paper Fun Facts

Fun Facts

• Paper is all around us . . .

• Why is the standard paper size in the U.S. 8 ½" x 11"?
• Every day, U.S. papermakers recycle enough paper to fill a 15 mile long train of boxcars.
• By 2012, the paper industry hopes to recover 55 percent of all the paper Americans consume.
• In 2005, 78 percent of paper and paperboard mills used some recovered paper and 149 mills used only recovered paper.
• Every ton of paper that is recovered saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.
• For hundreds of years, cotton and linen rags were the papermaker's raw materials.
• We use kraft paper every day when we ask supermarkets to pack our groceries in brown paper bags.
• In 2005, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 346 pounds for each man, woman and child in the United States
• More than 36 percent of the fiber used to make new paper products in the United States comes from recycled sources
• 86 percent (254 million) of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs
• Approximately 1.5 million tons of construction products are made each year of paper, including insulation, gypsum wallboard, roofing paper, flooring, padding and sound-absorbing materials.  
• Paper was invented by the Chinese around 105 A.D. and was kept a secret for many years.
• The first paper merchant in America was Benjamin Franklin, who helped to start 18 paper mills in Virginia and surrounding areas.
• During the American Revolution, paper was so hard to find that soldiers ripped pages from books to use them as wadding for their rifles.
• There is a Paper Industry Hall of Fame, where great leaders, past and present, of the paper industry are inducted each year.
• Bags were first measured by how many pounds of sugar they held. (i.e., a 1 lb. bag was named that because it held 1 lb of sugar, a 2 lb bag because it held 2 lbs. of sugar, etc.)
• Paper grocery bags come in a variety of paper weights from light (30 lb.) to heavy-duty (70 lb.) and 14 stock sizes, capable of holding 2 to 25 pounds. The standard paper grocery bag measures about 12 inches wide, 7 inches deep, and 17 inches tall. A shorter bag, measuring just 14 inches tall, is becoming increasingly popular. Today's paper grocery bags may also have a paper handle--on either the standard or shorter bag--making them easy to carry and reuse.