Cardboard has a high recycling rate in the US. But it can't be reused forever, so making it also consumes millions of trees each year.
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00:00 This massive pile of pine trees will be turned into cardboard packaging.
00:08 A single box can contain material from thousands of trees and pass through the hands of hundreds
00:14 of workers.
00:15 They're like, "It's just a box."
00:18 And I say, "No, it ain't."
00:20 A lot goes into it.
00:21 If you've used a cardboard box in the U.S. today, there's a one-in-three chance that
00:27 international paper made it.
00:29 It's the world's largest paper company.
00:33 Cardboard is essential for countless industries, protecting items as they move on trucks and
00:38 ships.
00:39 And the good news is that it's one of the most recycled materials in the world.
00:45 But if so much of it gets reused, why do we still have to cut down millions of trees?
00:51 And is it possible to make environmentally friendly cardboard?
00:57 This mill in Georgia is just one of hundreds of facilities operated by international paper.
01:03 It runs 24/7 to meet demand from online shopping, grocery stores, and more.
01:09 But no one in this industry would call their product cardboard.
01:13 Why don't you like to use the word cardboard?
01:15 Because it's not cardboard.
01:17 Insiders call it corrugated packaging.
01:21 A wavy layer sandwiched between two flat outer sheets.
01:25 And yeah, most people call it cardboard.
01:31 Making it starts with living trees.
01:34 Forester Alex Singleton walked us through an area whose trees were sold to international
01:39 paper two years ago.
01:40 It has since been replanted with longleaf pine.
01:46 But it will still take decades for the new crop to mature.
01:50 For many foresters, we only see a site harvested once during our careers.
01:55 This stage to there would probably be around 30 years.
02:01 After harvesting, landowners make money selling their trees to different industries.
02:06 Which makes them into things like lumber, telephone poles, and of course, paper.
02:12 The idea is to turn forests into an investment, so more people plant and maintain them.
02:19 Without young, healthy forests, our industry could not be successful.
02:25 I don't view logging or clearcutting as negative.
02:28 It's just the start of a process.
02:30 But critics say that replanting trees is not the same as letting them grow.
02:35 This is one of the most industrial and heavily logged forests on the planet.
02:41 The southern U.S., sometimes called America's wood basket, is home to 2% of the world's
02:47 forested land.
02:48 Yet it produces nearly 20% of our pulp and paper products.
02:53 Which either means it's highly productive, or highly exploited, depending on who you
02:58 ask.
03:02 On a typical day, about 300 trucks loaded with freshly cut trees drive up to this mill.
03:08 The first stop is the wood yard.
03:11 Some of the trees are set aside into these massive piles, which ensure the mill can sustain
03:16 round-the-clock operations.
03:19 They come from farms and forests within 120 miles.
03:24 A sprinkler keeps them wet so they stay fresh, and to reduce the risk of fire.
03:30 A crane scoops trees from the pile and drops them into a machine that knocks off the bark.
03:36 With a debarking drum, you're removing bark.
03:40 I tell kids, "Some of it's like a potato peeler."
03:43 This process creates tons of leftover bark, which will be burned for energy.
03:49 The debarked trunks travel through a chipper and pile up here.
03:55 On that wood chip pile, we can keep up to around 100,000 tons of chips.
04:02 It'll only take the mill about 10 days to work through this mountain.
04:07 A conveyor belt feeds into the next step, pulping.
04:12 Pulping is made of long, stringy fibers held together by a natural glue-like material called
04:17 lignin.
04:19 Paper makers want the fibers, but not the glue.
04:22 So they use steam and chemicals to dissolve it.
04:25 The reaction can create gas that smells like sulfur.
04:29 If you've ever noticed a rotten odor while driving by a paper plant, that's probably
04:33 why.
04:34 International Paper says its plants are built to capture a lot of those gases, which cuts
04:39 down on smell.
04:42 The fibers are covered in a toxic mix of chemicals and tree residue, so they have to be cleaned.
04:51 That liquor that's washed off gets evaporated and consolidated and goes into what we call
04:55 a recovery boiler.
04:57 In other words, the plant burns those goopy leftovers, creating steam and chemicals that
05:03 can go back through the process and save energy.
05:07 We're really plants inside of a plant.
05:09 So we have our own chemical plant, our own power plant.
05:12 In fact, this mill makes about 75% of its own energy on site.
05:17 IP is also burning less coal than it used to, which helps cut down on factory emissions.
05:24 But trees hold a lot of carbon, and the company's own sustainability report says carbon released
05:30 by processing the trees was more than double its emissions from burning fossil fuels in
05:36 2022.
05:39 Before the pulp becomes paper, workers add used cardboard to the mix.
05:46 Old packaging gets a new start in this warehouse.
05:50 The boxes that we use here in the recycle plant come from local retailers and grocery
05:55 stores up to a 300-mile radius from the mill.
06:00 Katie Fries has worked in this recycling mill for three years.
06:04 She says people still have a lot of misconceptions about the process.
06:08 Our process is designed to take out the stuff like grease and tape.
06:12 Just recycle any corrugated box you have, whether it has tape on it or food in it.
06:17 It can be used to make paper again.
06:19 And you can recycle a pizza box.
06:22 Every day, this mill recycles 500 tons of used cardboard.
06:27 Each ton saves trees, energy, and water.
06:31 Saving water is key because nearly every step of papermaking uses lots of it.
06:36 The used cardboard also gets pulped, using water and chemicals, then mixes with fresh
06:42 fibers.
06:45 Workers simply call this massive contraption the paper machine.
06:50 It presses the pulp flat and squeezes out water.
06:53 Then it sends the mixture through a series of dryers, heated to over 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
06:58 As that goes down the machine, the sheet gets drier and drier.
07:04 And after all that, you still only have paper.
07:08 To become corrugated packaging, the rolls head to a box plant.
07:14 Like this one in Illinois.
07:17 Here flexible paper becomes sturdy boxes.
07:20 The heartbeat of the plant is the corrugator.
07:23 Corrugating is how the packaging's middle layer gets that distinctive wavy shape.
07:28 The waves are actually called flutes, and they're what gives this type of packaging
07:33 its strength.
07:34 There are different types of flutes.
07:36 Smaller ones print better, aren't as good for stacking strength, and the larger ones
07:39 don't print as well, but they're better for stacking strength.
07:42 This plant can make boxes in over 1.6 million different designs.
07:47 The smallest box I've ever made was about the size of a ring box.
07:50 The largest box I've ever made in one of my facilities was for a washing machine.
07:55 After gluing the layers together, finishing touches include printing on graphics and cutting
08:00 the sheets into their final shapes.
08:03 To save space, most boxes ship to customers flat.
08:08 And any trimmings or waste pieces can be recycled right back into the process.
08:13 In the U.S., more than 70% of used cardboard gets recycled, which is much higher than the
08:18 rates for aluminum, glass, or plastic.
08:22 Corrugating paper is easy to recycle because the supply chain supports it, so there's
08:26 value in it.
08:27 It also helps that nearly 80% of Americans can recycle it using bins right on their curbs.
08:34 So why does the industry still use up so many trees?
08:38 Part of it is that old cardboard can't be recycled indefinitely.
08:42 The EPA says it can only go through the process about seven times.
08:46 Each time it goes through pulping and blending, the long, strong pine fibers get a bit shorter
08:52 and weaker.
08:53 And eventually, the degraded paper bits simply wash through the screens and out of the process.
08:58 So recycling is very important.
09:01 But even if 100% of boxes got reused, making new ones would still mean cutting down trees.
09:07 Some experts say the big question is whether the industry manages forests responsibly.
09:13 International Paper gets more than 90% of its fiber from trees in the southern U.S.,
09:19 where the vast majority of woodlands are on private property.
09:23 What we do is we provide a viable market for that landowner's trees such that they will
09:29 have the income or revenue to be able to pay for the reforestation that takes place on
09:34 their lands.
09:36 Foresters and paper companies argue that without that market, people might just sell their
09:40 land, potentially losing forests forever to agriculture, parking lots, or other uses.
09:47 Data from the University of Maryland shows that tree cover in the U.S. today is about
09:52 the same as it was in the year 2000.
09:55 For me, as a forester, it must mean that we're doing our job right, that we're taking care
10:01 of the environment, that we're promoting forest growth.
10:04 But measuring forest area is complicated.
10:07 To start, not everyone agrees what a forest even is.
10:11 Pine plantations are not forests.
10:14 Forests are tree farms that lack the diversity, the structural diversity, the biological diversity
10:21 that a lot of these species depend on.
10:24 An environmental nonprofit called the Dogwood Alliance says that tree farms have been replacing
10:29 natural forests.
10:31 That could potentially have a global impact.
10:34 Some experts estimate that natural forests are 40 times better than plantations at storing
10:40 carbon, which makes them crucial to slowing climate change.
10:44 Forests have lots of other benefits too, like filtering our drinking water and reducing
10:49 erosion.
10:50 Certain forestry techniques, like leaving some large trees in place, can help planted
10:55 forests retain those benefits.
10:59 I think there are ways to sustainably manage forests without taking out the larger trees
11:05 and completely destroying the structural complexity of a forest.
11:09 But that takes really skilled, targeted forestry, and that's not always what happens.
11:16 Ultimately, the world uses a lot of paper, which has to come from somewhere.
11:22 You might see certifications stamped on boxes.
11:25 Those are supposed to indicate they're made of trees that were harvested sustainably.
11:29 International Paper says that more than 30% of the fibers it used in 2022 came from forests
11:35 with one of those certifications.
11:38 I think there is a way for industry and conservation to coexist in southern forests, but there
11:47 has to be a good faith effort on all sides.
11:50 [Sound of wind]