<b>Paperboard Production Continues Downward Trend</b>

The spate of bad news for the paperboard industry has been widely reported. Recent figures from the American Forest and Paper Association confirm what the paper and recycling industry have been seeing for the past several quarters.

According to the most recent figures from the AFPA, the production of recycled paperboard declined by 7.1 percent over the first three months of the year. Total production from January through March stands at 3.838 million tons, compared to last year’s three-month figure of 4.132 million tons.

Although the figure is down sharply from last year, the decline is not as steep as the drop the overall paperboard industry has seen. The AFPA reports total paperboard production for this year stands at 11.534 million tons, a 10 percent drop from the same time last year.

Broken out by individual recycled board grades, recycled linerboard production dropped by 10.4 percent to 306,000 tons. In comparison, total linerboard production dipped by 9.7 percent during the same time.

Recycled corrugated medium also was a decliner between the two years. For 2001 the production of this grade, on an annual rate, stands at 3.930 million tons, a 5 percent drop from figures the same time last year. Posting an even sharper decline between the two years was semichemical medium production. This grade plummeted more than 13 percent between the two years.

The third component of the recycled paperboard segment is boxboard. This grade, the most mature of all three sectors, also showed a decline between last year and this year.

While total production of boxboard dipped by 5.5 percent between last year and this year, recycled boxboard posted a slightly smaller loss of 4 percent between the two years.