The Circular Life of a Cardboard Box

The simple corrugated cardboard box, strong and light, is a bedrock of the American economy. From big-box behemoth stores to the local mom-and-pop, almost every product sold in the United States is at some point contained in cardboard.

For many companies, used cardboard presents a headache. It piles up, sometimes by the ton, behind stores, in warehouses, stockrooms and loading docks around the country, taking up valuable real estate, impeding business and, in some cases, creating a risk to human health and a fire hazard. A store can be shut down by a health official or a fire marshal simply because there is too much cardboard piling up behind the store.

All those boxes have an environmental impact, as well. They require trees, a renewable resource, to create virgin wood pulp to make the cardboard and energy, industrial chemicals and water to turn trees into pulp and pulp into paper. It is estimated that it takes three tons of trees to make one ton of corrugated cardboard. As trees are a renewable resource, using recycled fiber to supplement virgin pulp allows us to maximize the lifespan of all our pulp as long as possible.

Fortunately, corrugated cardboard is also one of the most recyclable materials in use today. In 2023, 71-76 percent of cardboard was recycled. In some states, it is even illegal NOT to recycle cardboard by sending it to a landfill. And a large majority of the boxes we make today contain a mix of virgin and recycled fiber. Ensuring that recycled fiber is collected and fed back into our manufacturing process is a key component of the circular product lifecycle. Increasing the share of recycled fiber in each box is, therefore, an important aspect of Sustainability In Motion.®

At International Paper we believe in circularity—recapturing and reusing as much of the raw materials of our business as possible. The more we recycle, the fewer resources we use to create new boxes, and the more sustainable our way of life becomes. As one of the world’s largest consumers of wood pulp, and by extension recycled pulp, International Paper occupies a unique and important position in the life of a cardboard box—and in the environmental sustainability of America’s natural resources. We use virgin pulp from sustainably-managed forests, but we also source millions of tons of used cardboard from department stores, large retailers, grocery chains and others. We then transport and process that recycled material into new boxes.

It is this end-to-end circular model that sets our approach apart from almost every other cardboard recycler.

We call it Sustainability in Motion.®

Circularity is a key strategy for International Paper as a whole. It means prioritizing, wherever possible, the use of resources that are renewable, sustainably managed, recovered and reused, through design, production and recovery across our value chain. In the context of recycling, circularity means recovering and reusing as much wood fiber, energy, water and other materials as possible in a never-ending cycle from natural resource to finished product and back again.

For International Paper, circularity begins in the forests, where we encourage sustainable forest management and continual improvement in growing, harvesting and processing practices. This carries through to our mills, where we use this renewable material and give used products new life. Circularity also touches on product design, as engineers work to improve product quality and capability, while reducing waste and increasing the amount of recycled product that is reused. Likewise, it means keeping as much as possible out of a landfill. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, every ton of paper recovered through recycling saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill.^[1] International Paper has helped to keep nearly 230 million pounds of reusable material out of landfills and saved or avoided approximately 251,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.^[2]

International Paper is one of the world’s leading producers of renewable, fiber-based packaging and pulp products. In North America alone, we operate dozens of strategically located paper mills and recycling plants, hundreds of box plants, and a large brokerage network made up of local recyclers.^[3] International Paper recovers, reprocesses, reuses or brokers placement of more than seven million tons of recovered fiber each year.^[4] We are among the top-two consumers of recovered fiber in the world. International Paper itself reuses five million tons of recovered fiber every year.

That infrastructure and knowledge helps us manage the flow of recycled materials efficiently to avoid costly backlogs and assure reliability and material continuity of recycled fiber in the value chain.

International Paper works at every level of the circular economy to improve recovery and recycling of fiber.

⁴ See pg. 7, 2024 Sustainability Report

Embracing the circular economy means looking throughout our value chain for opportunities to optimize and improve our operations. In this regard, International Paper occupies a unique position in the market. We are both a producer of fiber-based products and a consumer of reclaimed cardboard. As such, we have a marked impact on the overall market for recycled cardboard. International Paper is among the world’s largest stewards of wood and recovered fiber.

Paper mills are the keystone in the circular lifecycle of a cardboard box, the point where both virgin and recycled fiber are brought together to make new cardboard. Wood fiber can be used several times before it is considered “lost,” but it cannot be used indefinitely. International Paper is, however, working to increase the effective usefulness of fiber and to increase the amount of recycled fiber in each box.

As one of the world’s largest producers of cardboard, International Paper plays a leading role in the overall circularity of the cardboard market. We monitor and manage the ratio of new fiber to recycled in every new box we produce based on monthly averages of total pulp used.

Wherever possible, International Paper is also an aggregator of that recycled material, contracting with large retailers, grocery chains, hospitals and schools to collect used boxes, many of which we produced in the first place, and transport them to processing facilities and from there to the mills to become new boxes.

International Paper collected and consumed or marketed 7 million tons of fiber every year.^[4] That is 12 percent of the entire U.S. market for recycled cardboard. Since 2013 International Paper has increased its recovery rate of
corrugated packaging by 93 percent and its overall recovery rate by 40 percent.^[5] That is good for communities nationwide. It removes unwanted waste, reduces the demand for virgin fiber from newly cut timber and increases the lifespan of our fiber resources, and means good-paying, full-time jobs for people in those communities across the country. But we are always searching for new ways to increase that share where it makes environmental and business sense.

International Paper’s mills and facilities are strategically located near managed forestland, allowing us to decrease transportation distances when sourcing new fiber, which reduces emissions and use offuel—providing cleaner air, a healthier planet and more jobs in local communities. This network also puts International Paper closer to our customers on the bulk collection side. Shorter hauls in either direction mean lower fuel costs. IP reduced greenhouse gas emission 21.4 percent between 2010 and 2020.^[8] As part of International Paper’s Vision 2030 goals, we are committed to reducing carbon emissions across our entire value chain, including transportation emissions from both IP-owned and external transport.

Circularity is not easy. It takes know-how and hard work and that means long-term, good paying jobs for communities across the world. International Paper acquired DS Smith in Q1 of 2025, and together they employ over 65,000 people worldwide^[9] and have impacted over 13 million lives through investments in the communities where we live and work.^[10]. Our environmental influence is matched by economic impact. By working with International Paper, you become part of that important value chain.

With each cycle, however, wood fibers become shorter and more brittle. Eventually, they become unusable for making new paper. On average, the fiber in cardboard can be reused several times before it is considered “lost.”^[11] Increasing the ratio of recycled to new fiber, optimizing our processes and looking for ways to extend the useful life of fiber are all key components of International Paper’s drive for circularity.

It is estimated that 10 tons of recovered bulk cardboard yields perhaps 8 tons of reusable pulp.^[12] While that is a high ratio, it will likely never be 100 percent. If the industry had to rely only on recovered fiber alone, it would run out of fiber within 6 to 18 months.^[12]

On the front end of that equation, the use of virgin fiber, International Paper is committed to responsibly sourcing all new fiber from responsibly managed forests. International Paper purchases approximately 52 million tons of virgin wood, approximately four million tons of fiber fuel and approximately five million tons of recovered fiber annually for our manufacturing. We recognize we need to leverage a broad range of tools to ensure responsible sourcing as we deliver on our Vision 2030 fiber sourcing target.^[13]

In 2021, we continued to expand the application of our ForSite™ sustainability mapping system to advance transparency, due diligence and field verification in our fiber sourcing:

• Transparent Sourcing: All uncertified groundwood we received was mapped to the forest of origin using ForSite™
• Due diligence was performed on 987 purchases that were identified as being at risk of non-compliance with our Global Fiber Procurement policy
• Over 400 second-party verification field visits occurred on tracts to document active sustainable forest management being implemented by the landowner

As a result, eighty-nine percent of fiber sourced was verified as being derived from a sustainably managed forest or is third-party certified to a forest management standard such as FSC®, PEFC™ or SFI®. Trees grown and harvested are managed to maintain biodiversity and productivity without harm to other ecosystems.^[16] For the second half of the equation, recycled fiber must be gathered in great quantities and can come from many sources such as scraps from a printer or post-consumer fiber like that from cardboard piling up at warehouses, groceries and retail stores across the county.

Achieving circularity requires commitment and partnership throughout the fiber value chain. Collection of used cardboard is only the first step in recycling and not all cardboard can be easily recycled. Sometimes cardboard is coated in protective plastic or wax coatings that must be removed to prepare the recovered material for re-pulping/manufacturing. Other times there are metal staples or other binding materials that also must be removed. These extraneous “contaminants” require that cardboard be sorted, by hand, before recycling. This adds cost and time to the recycling process.

Efficiently and cost-effectively managing circularity takes infrastructure and expertise, as well. IP has invested significantly to upgrade our facilities and our workforce to meet the demands of circularity. Paper waste is collected from businesses, schools, hospitals and other commercial spaces and transferred to one of our facilities where the materials are pre-sorted and the contaminants removed. The pre-sorted paper is then separated by type, baled and transported to paper mills where the re-pulping process begins.

Once received at the mill, recovered bulk cardboard is saturated in water and agitated, separating the fibers from one another and from additional contaminants like plastic, wax and other coatings, staples and other bindings, tape and adhesives. The result is a slurry of purified fiber and water known as “furnish.”

The furnish includes fibers of varying lengths and quality that get optimized by strength and sorted optically for the intended final product. Fiber that has exceeded its useful life is separated out and burned as a fuel in the manufacturing process or is used as compost or insulation. The volume of combustible byproducts is great enough that most of International Paper’s mills are self-sustaining from an energy standpoint. Seventy percent of mill energy is generated from these renewable biomass residuals. ^[18]

The recycled furnish is combined with virgin pulp and spread evenly in a thin layer on a moving wire mesh conveyor belt. Rollers squeeze the furnish and dryers evaporate away most of the water. As they dry, the pulp fibers mesh and bind to one another to form new paper. The recovered water is reused.

Finished paper retains approximately eight percent water by weight, depending on the paper type. Eighty-nine percent of the water International Paper uses is returned to the environment after treatment.^[19] Additives or coatings can be added to achieve specific product qualities. The finished paper is then corrugated into sheets of cardboard and die cut into boxes of every type. The trimmed discards from the die-cutting process are also recycled.

International Paper makes about one of every three cardboard boxes used in the United States, and on average a third of the fiber in any given box is recycled. As such, International Paper is one of the largest buyers of used cardboard in the United States. As both recycler and producer of cardboard, we play a unique and critical role in the overall sustainability of the recovered fiber market in the United States. Whether we source the recycled materials from generators, or we buy it from a third-party aggregator, International Paper is the keystone of the sustainable circular economy.

In that role, International Paper has invested heavily in infrastructure, research and development and in expertise to ensure that the recycling process is environmentally sound, energy efficient and cost effective. That can mean everything from thought leadership in engineering the recycling process itself, looking for ways to extend the useful life cycle of wood pulp, finding new ways to conserve water and energy in those processes, as well as investment in state-of-the-art mill equipment and processes.

In that regard, one of the linchpins of sustainability is how bulk cardboard is transported from the generator to one of our facilities to begin processing. International Paper has an existing network of paper mills across the country and owns and operates a fleet of trucks to collect and transport reclaimed cardboard to the mills as efficiently as possible. In communities where International Paper does not have mills, we maintain a network of third-party partners to which we can feed recovered cardboard we cannot use ourselves. Regardless of where a cardboard generator is physically located, however, an International Paper truck or one of our many third-party providers is usually not far away, making efficient collection and transportation to mills easier, less energy intensive and less expensive.

Recycled fiber is not just a feel-good aspect of our work, but rather critical to our entire business. IP cannot operate without recycled fiber. Therefore, the initial quality of material matters, and we are continually concerned with fully understanding the sourcing of the material we buy. While International Paper has some sorting and cleansing capabilities to remove the contaminants that cannot be turned into paper, we depend on a steady stream of high-quality recovered materials.

Efficient recycling is a win-win for us and our partners. We alleviate an ongoing concern for our clients—what to do with all that bulky, flammable, difficult-to-manage cardboard. At the same time, we guarantee our mills a steady stream of quality raw material that allows us to run efficiently. In the end, it also improves our final product. The bottom line is that International Paper moves cardboard, helping our clients avoid costly shutdowns and backlogs while ensuring reliability, material continuity and sustainability of our operations.

In return, we pay those generators a fair and carefully calculated price per ton of material. A trade organization known as Fastmarkets RISI—a price reporting organization for the global forest products, metals, and industrial minerals markets—sets a base value for recyclable fiber. Aggregators and processors, like International Paper, use that price as the basis for our bids.

²⁰ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/magazine/cardboard-international-paper.html

Used cardboard is not waste; it has financial value. Many companies will pay generators, especially those who generate huge volumes, like department stores, chain retailers, appliance stores, groceries, hospitals and schools, for the privilege of hauling used cardboard away. There are not many products in the world where a used product can generate revenue, but cardboard is one.

Inherent in our price are the often hard-to-calculate aspects of running an efficient, optimized recycling program. For cardboard generators, the value proposition should include intangibles like the improved brand equity garnered through the goodwill earned by implementing sustainable recycling programs. These intangibles are currently drawing increased scrutiny in the age of the SEC’s new requirements that publicly traded companies must report yearly on their Environment, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) programs.

Against that backdrop, International Paper’s Sustainability in Motion® recycling program takes on renewed significance, and the full value of our circular approach comes into focus. One of the largest lingering doubts about the recycling of other waste materials, particularly plastic, is that, once out of the generators’ hands, no one can confirm that the product is, in fact, recycled. Much waste material is shipped off to other locations across the world where it often ends up in landfills rather than in new product—a phenomenon sometimes referred to in the sustainability community as “wishcycling.”

International Paper’s end-to-end business structure guarantees that any cardboard that gets collected gets recycled. Our business model ensures it. Generators can be assured that as close to 100% of their bulk cardboard is being recycled as possible. To bolster our partnerships, International Paper ensures that all material gets weighed at the mill, and we provide full and certified waste audits and periodic reports that ensure timely and full payment, the amount and types of cardboard collected, and what the percentage of that recovered cardboard gets recycled. Those verified tonnages can be reported out to investors and sustainability watchers in ESG reports.

Another key aspect of International Paper’s Sustainability in Motion® program is scale. For one client, International Paper manages a relationship with 6,000 stores nationwide, moving almost 3 million tons of cardboard in a single year. International Paper has the scale to reach all 6,000 stores and to move the cardboard in increments of 5, 10 and 20 one-ton bales at a time on a regular basis. International Paper’s nationwide reach and dependability are hard to match.

International Paper is committed to building a better future for people, the planet and our company. Our three-pronged approach addresses our impacts across our value chain:

We are implementing our Vision 2030 goals with the leadership of our employees throughout our entire organization.

We have established a governance structure led by senior leadership that integrates environmental, social and governance considerations throughout our organization, from the C-Suite to the facility floor.

Scale, expertise, collaboration and reliability—International Paper is a true steward of America’s wood and water resources at the heart of a circular economy and a true partner for companies looking for certainty in their sustainability programs. The mission of Sustainability in Motion® is to create those enduring partnerships with our customers to keep their businesses and ours moving forward through responsible and sustainable industry practices. Together, we bring true circularity to the wood fiber value chain.