Down paper waste. A brief context to set expectations.
Down paper waste: Quick notes
Paper is one of the easiest materials to recycle, and Americans are still pretty good at it. We are also still throwing away tens of millions of tons of it every year.
Paper and paperboard make up roughly a quarter of municipal solid waste in the United States, it is the single largest category by weight. Eliminating paper waste entirely would take a Herculean effort for most households, but whether you want to do good, better, or best, you can cut what you use and recycle more of what you don’t.
The Numbers
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s last comprehensive accounting of municipal solid waste, released in 2020 with 2018 data, pegged total MSW generation at 292.4 million tons — about 4.9 pounds per person per day. Paper and paperboard accounted for 23.1% of that total, or 67.4 million tons. (EPA has not published an updated edition of the Facts and Figures report since.)
More recent data comes from the paper industry itself. The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) reported that about 46 million tons of paper were recycled in the United States in 2024 — roughly 125,000 tons every day — which resulted in a paper recycling rate of 60% to 64% and a cardboard recycling rate of 69% to 74%. Both figures slipped compared to 2023, primarily because exports to Asia softened. Domestic mills, meanwhile, used 1.29 million more tons of recycled paper than the year before, and recycled fiber’s share of all fiber used at U.S. mills reached 44.4%, its highest in two decades.
AF&PA changed its methodology in 2024 to report rates as ranges rather than single numbers and to factor in recycled fiber that arrives in the country inside imported packaging. That makes year-over-year comparisons messier than they used to be, but it also makes the numbers more honest. The headline takeaway has not changed: paper is still one of the most recycled materials in the United States, and overall paper waste has been declining since around 2000 as digitization eats into print volumes.
With paper still filling roughly a quarter of our garbage cans, there is plenty of room to do better.
Good
You can take simple steps to reduce the paper you use, and curbside paper recycling remains widely available across most U.S. communities. AF&PA reports that 79% of Americans have access to community residential-curbside recycling for paper and cardboard. Recycling clean paper takes almost no effort and makes a meaningful difference.
Here is how to be good about paper waste:
- Recycle paper through your curbside program. It is the simplest single thing you can do.
- Recycle only clean paper. Wishcycling of food-soiled paper can contaminate an entire load.
- Cancel print subscriptions you no longer read and switch to digital editions of newspapers and magazines.
- Set your printer to two-sided printing by default, and reuse paper as scratch paper before recycling it.
- Choose paper products made with post-consumer recycled content. Recycled-content packaging now makes up nearly half the fiber used at U.S. paper mills.
Better
If you want to do better than good — or if your community has limited curbside service — a little extra effort goes a long way. Contact your local solid waste utility to let them know you value recycling (your garbage bill should tell you whom to call). To do better, you’ll need to recycle more types of paper and start replacing single-use paper with reusable alternatives:
- Use the Earth911 recycling locator to find drop-off options for paper your curbside program won’t take, such as paperback books, gable-top cartons, aseptic drink boxes, shredded paper, and more.
- Compost what you can’t recycle. Dirty paper towels, disposable napkins, paper plates, and pizza boxes don’t belong in the recycling bin, but they break down well in commercial composting or a home compost bin.
- Skip the paper-or-plastic dilemma at checkout with reusable shopping and tote bags.
- Replace paper-bag lunches with a lunchbox or furoshiki wrap, which doubles as reusable gift wrap.
- Digitize what you reasonably can. Use note-taking apps and electronic calendars in place of notebooks, and sign up for electronic billing and digital magazine subscriptions.
- Cut the junk mail at the source. Register your mail preferences with DMAchoice, which is now operated by the Association of National Advertisers, for a small fee that covers a 10-year listing. To stop prescreened credit and insurance offers, use the credit bureaus’ OptOutPrescreen service or call 1-888-567-8688.
Best
Because paper is one of the more easily recyclable materials, paper products are often the greener choice in head-to-head comparisons with plastic. So while plastic-free is a popular goal, almost no one seriously attempts a paper-free lifestyle, and you don’t need to.
To get to zero waste, do what you can to eliminate avoidable paper and recycle the rest. If you have already worked through the Good and Better tiers, you’ll notice that food packaging accounts for most of the paper waste you have left.
- Zero waste grocery shopping requires a real shift — seeking out bulk stores, carrying reusable containers, and cooking more from scratch. The payoff is a dramatic reduction in paperboard packaging.
- Cutting pizza boxes and takeout containers means cooking more meals at home. The packaging savings are significant; the takeout habit is harder to break.
- Rethink napkins, tissues, and paper towels. Cloth napkins are the easiest swap; handkerchiefs take more getting used to. Breaking the paper towel habit usually means buying a stack of cloth shop towels or microfiber cloths and learning to grab those instead.
- Toilet paper is a tougher ask. Bidets, including affordable seat attachments, are the most effective way to cut household toilet paper use. If that’s a stretch, switching to bamboo or recycled-content toilet paper is a meaningful step down from virgin tree fiber.
What You Can Do This Week
- Audit your recycling bin once. If half of what’s in there isn’t paper or cardboard, your sorting habits are leaving easy wins on the table.
- Spend ten minutes registering with DMAchoice and OptOutPrescreen. Junk mail volumes drop within two to three months.
- Use the Earth911 recycling search to find a drop-off for the paper categories your curbside program rejects — shredded paper and gable-top cartons are the two most commonly missed.
- Replace one disposable paper product in your kitchen with a reusable alternative this month. Cloth napkins or shop towels are the lowest-friction starting points.
Editor’s note: This article was originally authored by Gemma Alexander on April 6, 2020, and was substantially updated in May 2026.
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