5. OPEN FORUM HANDOUT 10-20-2014

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to community. Old Corrugated Containers into new paper The heart of LPI's environmental commitment is its unique manufacturing cycle. "We are very proud that we keep 250,000 tons of material out of the landfill, make it into a value -added product, and put it back into the market for reuse," Newell said. "It's a complete circle, a great story." The cycle begins at Liberty Carton, which uses recycled corrugated containers to manufacture its boxes. LPI collects used corrugated boxes from many sources, including some manufactured by Liberty Carton. LPI's 140 employees complete the cycle by taking the OCC and converting it into a 100 percent recycled paper, called Kraft liner board, used for new corrugated packaging and other products, such as M -Guard Moisture Barrier, a 100 percent recycled linerboard introduced in 2000, that repels moisture yet looks, feels, corrugates and prints Eke regular linerboard. Corrugated containers are the most recycled materials on the face of the earth, said Tim Swanson, LPI's environmental engineer. (See sidebar.) More than 90 percent of OCC is recovered and recycled. Like Newell, Swanson is one of the estimated 80 percent of employees present at the mill's startup who still work there. Obtaining OCC, also known as fiber, is the job of Peg Wander, LPI's fiber procurement manager. Wan- der had been working on the business and marketing side of the recycling industry for over 20 years when she came to LPI in 2005. At that time, a separate procurement division, LDI Fibres, was being dissolved and its function integrated into the mill. Finding new sources of this sought -after commodity is a difficult task when most of it is already being purchased and recycled, Wander noted. Historically, the easiest and cleanest sources of fiber have been manufacturers that generate corrugated containers or large retailers like grocers and other businesses that use many boxes to ship or store their prod- ucts, Wander explained. With the advent of residential recycling in the late 1980s, she said, "corrugated began being collected in at the curb," which increased recycling rates. Initially household recycling required educating consumers to separate cans, bottles, and different kinds of paper—as well as how to determine what was and was not a corrugated box. This source - separated recycling yields a desirable high quality source of OCC for recycled paper manufacturers such as LPI. Rather than deal with the hassle of sorting, however, many households tossed valuable recyclable materials into the trash. To overcome this barrier to collecting and sorting more material, municipalities are increasingly moving to single stream recycling. Advances in technology mean all recyclables can be tossed in one container. Haulers take the unsorted recyclables to materials recovery facilities (MRFs) where they are sorted to end users market specifica- tions. Plastic, glass, aluminum, and various kinds of paper each have their own end market where they can be recycled into new products.