Today's Topics:
coke petition
coke petition -Reply
ONP Market Situation
ONP Market Situation -Reply
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Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 08:16:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Infinrecy@aol.com
Subject: coke petition
Last night when I petitioned people in the bar I played for open mic,
everyone signed, and it seemed that about a third or a quarter of them
expressed surprise that coke wasn't already using recycled plastic in their
bottles. It seems that coke and the industry has done a good job in fooling
the public that they're already doing the real thing. It's probably those
stupid chasing arrows around the plastic code number, but its basically a
huge misconception that might offer an opportunity to address.
Ford
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Date: Thu, 01 May 1997 09:00:47 -0600
From: George Dreckmann <GDRECKMANN@ci.madison.wi.us>
Subject: coke petition -Reply
Hi,
Ford has hit on one of our most powerful tools regarding the non use of
post consumer PETE by Coke et al. I find the same reaction. The public
is shocked, shocked to learn that their bottles do not contain recycled
material. The impression is that our PETE is being recycled so it must be
going back into bottles. Coke relies on this impression. Let us keep
exposing the big lie.
While we are at it, hammer Coke on this new heavy can. It exposes the
hypocracy of all their claims of environmental commitment on using light
weight plastic. I'm anticipating a piece in my loca paper today or
tomorrow on that issue.
Also, some information that has passed my way indicates that the cost
to Coke of switching to a 25% post consumer content PETE 2 liter would
be one quarter of a penny. Bet they spent more on the reshaped bottle.
Pax,
George Dreckmann
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Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 05:43:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: "William P. McGowan" <6500kai@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu>
Subject: ONP Market Situation
Chris,
My read on the ONP situtaion is tied to three phenominon:
1) Paper industry price gauging of three years ago
2) Consumer/advertiser preferences
3) Relatively high contamination
1) Price gauging of the past--as we all know, eveything in the paper
industry hit all time highs three years ago. For those firms that could
pass on the costs to their customers, fine, but for those marginal
papers, usually the "afternoon daily in major cities, the price spike in
news was the final nail in their coffin. their production costs doubled
at a time when their readers were increasingly less willling to abosrb a
price increase. Now that many of these afternoon dailies are gone,
there is nowhere near the previous level of demand for newsprint, and the
market has not had long enough to create new sources of demand. I call
this the too much newspaper chasing too fews newspaper companies scenario.
2) Consumer/advertiser preferences. News paper is increasingly an
unpopular medium to advertise on--it looks dull, and newspaper
experiments to make newspapers four- and six- color masterpieces (USA
notwithstanding) have failed miserably. People want to advertise on
something that looks sharp, which usually means coated paper, not news.
3) High levels of contamination--aside from OCC, which has much more
fiber strength, ONP is notoriously polluted with all sorts of junk that
affects the operating costs of a paper machine, so paper mills are less
willing to a pay a premium for a grade that is in abundanace AND is a
problem to run.
Prices have picked up here in the last few days, but the long term
prognosis for news, in my opinion, is not good.
Sincerely,
Bill McGowan
Rincon Recycling
UCSB
On Wed, 30 Apr 1997
chris.cloutier@moea.state.mn.us wrote:
>
> Here in Minnesota, the ONP situation is abysmal! Haulers are cut back to 50
> - 10% of normal deliveries to the local mill. Other large recyclers are only
> accepting #8 and for b/t $25 - $45 a ton. Is this a regional problem or are
> others seeing the same problem? Whats going on: lack of export markets;
> reduced demand for boxboard; oversupply?
>
> If it gets much worse, we are going to experiement with ONP bales as parts
> of dikes to contain the Red River!
>
> chris.cloutier@moea.state.mn.us
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 May 1997 10:11:37 -0400
From: Chaz Miller <cmiller@envasns.org>
Subject: ONP Market Situation -Reply
Bill,
Your analysis of the paper industry response on newsprint prices is
slightly inaccurate. Newsprint prices spiked in response to a doubling of
virgin pulp prices. The newsprint companies were simply responding to
a dramatic increase in their raw material prices. The newspaper
companies responded in a classic market manner: they source reduced
their use of newsprint: this included tighter inventory control at news
delaer outlets, smaller sized sheets and withdrawal of circulation from
some geographic areas. The two Denver papers offer a good example
of this: the Denver Post is now printed on a smaller sheet size and the
Rocky Mountain News is no longer distributed out side of the Denver
metro area.
Other paper users also found ways to cut back on their paper
purchases (in fact, some of the most dramatic examples of paperless
offices, such as Owens-Cornings new headquarters office in Toledo
were insipred in part by high paper prices).
We are now faced with a 300,000 to 600,000 excess inventory of pulp
in the NORSCAN markets and perhaps as much in other markets. No
wonder virgin pulp prices have collapsed and taken wastepaper prices
with them.
Afternoon papers were pretty much gone well before the pulp prices
increases that lead to the source reduction reaction.
>>> "William P. McGowan" <6500kai@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> May 1, 1997
8:43 am >>>
Chris,
My read on the ONP situtaion is tied to three phenominon:
1) Paper industry price gauging of three years ago
2) Consumer/advertiser preferences
3) Relatively high contamination
1) Price gauging of the past--as we all know, eveything in the paper
industry hit all time highs three years ago. For those firms that could
pass on the costs to their customers, fine, but for those marginal
papers, usually the "afternoon daily in major cities, the price spike in
news was the final nail in their coffin. their production costs doubled
at a time when their readers were increasingly less willling to abosrb a
price increase. Now that many of these afternoon dailies are gone,
there is nowhere near the previous level of demand for newsprint, and
the market has not had long enough to create new sources of demand. I
call this the too much newspaper chasing too fews newspaper
companies scenario.
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End of GreenYes Digest V97 #96
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