纸张回收已经存在了很长时间。实际上，当你想到它时，纸张从一开始就是一种再生产品。在纸张存在的前1800年左右，它总是由废弃材料制成。纸张回收的最大好处是什么？回收纸可以节约自然资源，节约能源，减少温室气体排放，并为其他类型的无法回收的垃圾提供垃圾填埋空间。谁发明了纸？一位名叫Ts’ai Lun的中国官员是第一个提出我们认为是纸张的人。公元105年，在中国的雷阳，Ts’ai Lun将碎布，用于捕鱼网，大麻和草的组合搅拌成了世界上第一张真正的纸。在Ts’ai Lun发明纸张之前，人们在纸莎草纸上写道，纸莎草纸是古埃及人，希腊人和罗马人使用的天然芦苇，用来制造纸张类似的纸张材料。 Ts’ai Lun制作的第一张纸非常粗糙，但在接下来的几个世纪中，随着造纸遍布欧洲，亚洲和中东，这一过程得到了改善，纸张的质量也得到了提高。回收一吨纸可以节省17棵树，7,000加仑的水，380加仑的石油，3.3立方码的垃圾填埋场和4,000千瓦的能量 – 足以为美国平均房屋供电6个月 – 并减少一个温室气体排放量公吨碳当量（MTCE）。再造材料的造纸和生产纸张于1690年同时来到美国。威廉·里滕豪斯学会在德国制造纸张，并在现在费城的日耳曼敦附近的Monoshone Creek建立了美国第一家造纸厂。里滕豪斯用废弃的棉布和亚麻布制作纸张。直到19世纪，美国人才开始用树木和木纤维制作纸张。 1801年，Koops在英国开设了一家工厂，这是世界上第一家用棉和亚麻布以外的材料生产纸张的工厂 – 特别是再生纸。两年后，Koops工厂宣布破产并关闭，但Koops的专利纸张回收工艺后来被世界各地的造纸厂使用。市政纸张回收于1874年在马里兰州巴尔的摩开始，作为该国第一个路边回收计划的一部分。 1896年，第一个回收中心在纽约市开业。从那些早期的努力开始，纸张回收继续增长，直到今天，更多的纸张被回收（如果按重量测量），而不是所有的玻璃，塑料和铝的组合。 1800年4月28日，一家名为Matthias Koops的英国造纸商获得了第一份纸张回收专利 – 英国专利号。 2392，标题为从纸张中提取墨水并将此类纸张转换为纸浆。在他的专利申请中，Koops将他的工艺描述为“我发明的一项发明，即从印刷和书写纸上提取印刷和书写油墨，并将提取油墨的纸张转换成纸浆，并使纸张适合书写，印刷和其他目的。“ 2014年，美国使用的纸张中有65.4％用于回收利用，共计5100万吨。根据美国森林与造纸协会的数据，自1990年以来，回收率增加了90％。大约80％的美国造纸厂使用一些回收纸纤维生产新的纸和纸板产品。
Paper recycling has been around for a long time. Actually, when you think about it, paper has been a recycled product from the very beginning. For the first 1,800 years or so that paper existed, it was always made from discarded materials. What Are the Most Significant Benefits of Paper Recycling? Recycling paper conserves natural resources, saves energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and keeps landfill space free for other types of trash that can’t be recycled. Who Invented Paper? A Chinese official named Ts’ai Lun was the first person to make what we would consider paper. In 105 AD, at Lei-Yang, China, Ts’ai Lun stirred together a combination of rags, used fishing nets, hemp and grass to make the first real paper the world had ever seen. Before Ts’ai Lun invented paper, people wrote on papyrus, a natural reed used by ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans to create the paper-like material from which paper derives its name. Those first sheets of paper Ts’ai Lun made were pretty rough, but over the next few centuries, as papermaking spread throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the process improved and so did the quality of the paper it produced. Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,000 kilowatts of energy-enough to power the average U.S. home for six months- and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one metric ton of carbon equivalent (MTCE). Papermaking and producing paper from recycled materials came to the United States simultaneously in 1690. William Rittenhouse learned to make paper in Germany and founded America’s first paper mill on Monoshone Creek near Germantown, which is now Philadelphia. Rittenhouse made his paper from discarded rags of cotton and linen. It wasn’t until the 1800s that people in the United States started making paper from trees and wood fiber. In 1801, Koops opened a mill in England that was the first in the world to produce paper from material other than cotton and linen rags-specifically from recycled paper. Two years later, the Koops mill declared bankruptcy and closed, but Koops’ patented paper-recycling process was later used by paper mills all over the world. Municipal paper recycling started in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1874, as part of the nation’s first curbside recycling program. And in 1896, the first recycling center opened in New York City. From those early efforts, paper recycling has continued to grow until, today, more paper is recycled (if measured by weight) than all of the glass, plastic, and aluminum combined. On April 28, 1800, an English papermaker named Matthias Koops was granted the first patent for paper recycling-English patent no. 2392, titled Extracting Ink from Paper and Converting such Paper into Pulp. In his patent application, Koops described his process as, “An invention made by me of extracting printing and writing ink from printed and written paper, and converting the paper from which the ink is extracted into pulp, and making thereof paper fit for writing, printing, and other purposes.” In 2014, 65.4 percent of the paper used in the United States was recovered for recycling, for a total of 51 million tons. That’s a 90 percent increase in the recovery rate since 1990, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. Approximately 80 percent of U.S. paper mills use some recovered paper fiber to produce new paper and paperboard products.