The production of recycled paperboard continues to show sharp declines for both the month and year to date. For March, the most recently reported month, production of the grade stands at 1.322 million tons, down slightly from last March’s production total of 1.369 million tons. Additionally, for the first three months of the year recycled board production dropped by 4 percent, to 3.785 million tons.
The decline was felt in both recycled linerboard and recycled corrugated medium. For recycled linerboard, production dropped by more than 14 percent, with March’s total standing at 320,000 tons. The figures for the month brought the three-month total to around 929,000 tons.
While recycled linerboard posted a sharp drop, total linerboard posted a modest 0.8 percent improvement over the first three months. According to the American Forest and Paper Association, production stands at 19.793 million tons.
Recycled corrugated medium also showed some sluggishness. For March, production stands at 320,000 tons, an 8.5 percent drop from figures the same time last year.
The decline in production comes while total medium production posted a more robust 2.4 percent improvement from last year. Semichemical medium production climbed by more than 11 percent for March compared to figures the same time last year.
The only recycled paperboard grade that showed a sign of improvement was recycled boxboard. For March, production stands at 219,000 tons, a 1.9 percent increase from figures the same time last year.
While the figure is an increase, total boxboard production climbed a much sharper 2.9 percent for the month.