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AF&PA Announces Support for the RECYCLE Act

CONTACT: Tim Ebner

(202) 463-2436, comm@afandpa.org

WASHINGTON — The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Heidi Brock issued the following statement in support of U.S. Senators Rob Portman’s (R-OH) and Debbie Stabenow’s (D-MI) and Representatives David Joyce’s (R-OH) and Dean Phillips’ (D-MN) introduced legislation, the RECYCLE Act. U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Todd Young (R-IN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Susan Collins (R-ME) are original cosponsors of this legislation.

“The RECYCLE Act will help educate millions of Americans on how to recycle paper and paper-based products, increasing the quantity and quality of paper in the recycling stream. AF&PA applauds the work of Senators Portman and Stabenow and Representatives Joyce and Phillips, who are working hard to engage on bipartisan solutions, and is eager to move this bill forward into law. Providing grants to fund recycling education programs is a necessary step to help ensure consumers can successfully contribute to paper recycling’s success story.

“Our industry is also contributing to a more circular and sustainable future, with more than $4.1 billion in manufacturing infrastructure investments, planned or announced from 2019-2023, to continue the best use of recovered fiber in manufacturing our products. For over a decade, the paper industry has achieved a consistently high recycling rate, meeting or exceeding 63 percent each year — a rate that’s nearly doubled since 1990, when we first set a paper recycling goal.”

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) serves to advance public policies that foster economic growth, job creation and global competitiveness for a vital sector that makes the essential paper and packaging products Americans use every day. The U.S. forest products industry employs more than 925,000 people, largely in rural America, and is among the top 10 manufacturing sector employers in 44 states. Our industry accounts for approximately 4.7% of the total U.S. manufacturing GDP, manufacturing more than $435 billion in products annually. AF&PA member companies are significant producers and users of renewable biomass energy and are committed to making sustainable products for a sustainable future through the industry’s decades-long initiative — Better Practices, Better Planet 2030