Freedom of the (Printing) Press: M. Coulter

To avoid mandatory recycling, some newspa pers have "volunteered" to purchase certain amounts of newsprint containing ONP. Agree mentshave been reached in Wisconsin and New Mr. Coulter is a senior at Grove City College in Pennsyl vania, where he is majoring in political science and phi losophy. He has served as editorin-chief of the Grove City College Collegian. York, stating that publishers will buy recycled newsprint if it is of a certain quality and price. This shifts the burden to the newsprint producers and says, in effect, that the newspaper industry can work toward recycling without government requirements. The economics of newsprint recycling are for midable. There are 62 newsprint plants in North America (21 in the United States and 41 in Cana da), but only nine are equipped for using old news paper print.3 These nine plants can produce only13 percent of industry capacity.4 Moreover, it costs approximately $100 million to retool a plant so it can make quality newsprint containing a high per centage of recycled fibers, or up to $500 million to build a new plant.5 Most of these plants are located near logging operations, while most ONP is avail able near highlypopulated urban centers.

Without legislativeinducements, approximately 1/3 of newsprint is recycled.6 Old newspaper print is used for tissue, cereal boxes, construction paper, construction board, and cellulose insulation. 7 Entrepreneurs have made use of the plethora of old newspaper and converted it into useful and profitable products, without government coercion. Legislative efforts may disrupt these established markets for ON~ Therefore, measures requiring newspaper pub lishers to use a particular type of newsprint yield small environmental gains at very high costs. Landfillswillfill up slightlymore slowly,and fewer trees will be cut for newsprint, but the costs are much greater. Newsprint producers would have to 45 make large capital investments to gain the capabil ity to recycle. In addition to capital investment, ONP must be purchased and transported to the plants. Also, existing markets for ONP could be unsettled. The additional costswillbe passed on to newspaper publishers, which could further hurt the troubled newspaper market.

Even if we disregard the economic costs in volved with the mandated use of recycled news print, we should oppose such initiatives because they are an illegitimate intrusion into the activities of the press. Thomas Jefferson asserted, "Our lib erty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." This state ment still rings true. D 1. "Waste Disposal Crisis Fuels Surge of Interest in Recy cling," Pulp and PaperJournal,January 1990,p. 46. 2. "State, Federal Governments Focus on Recycling," Presstime,March 1990,p. 60. 3. R. Dellinger, v: Horton, and D. Snow,"Waiting for the ONP Market to Improve," Waste Age, June 1990,p. 105. 4. G. Pierre Goad, "Recycling Siren Lures Newsprint Makers," The Wall StreetJournal,November 10, 1989. 5. Alex S. Jones, "Newsprint Gamble Proving Costly," The New York Times,April 21, 1990. 6. Pat Guy, "Publishers Push Papers to Recycle," USA Today, October 6,1989.

7. "Waiting ... ," p. 106.