Originally Posted by
NobleMetalWorks
The cardboard market is pretty much set. For extra pocket change when I owned a grocery store I used to sell the bails of cardboard and the pallets truckers left behind for extra cash. I have seen cardboard bail prices drop dramatically over the years, yet all the cardboard industry can get their hands on is recycled and turned into goods already. There is not enough carboard waste being generated to supply the demand, thus the use of trees.
And as hemp becomes legal to grow as a crop, the dependency on forests to provide the fiber pulp needed to make paper will dramatically reduce, so in cardboard, I think we are going to see a dramatic drop in prices within the next 5-10 years rather than an increase in demand. This added with the fact that many business are going paperless, and more and more public establishments are using other methods to dry rather than paper, I think the paper recycle business might not be the best example to use.
Scott
I'm not an expert on the forest industry, but It's my understanding that there has been a dramatic shift away from pulp over the past several years. Wood pellets, primarily for power generation, is growing steadily. This, and problems with supply due to Mountain Pine Beetle and other pests, means there will be an increasing scarcity of wood fiber (especially when home construction ramps up again). I did some reading on wood recycling over the winter and it appears that there are companies involved in this. I have no idea what used wood fiber is going for, but money follows scarcity. If someone has access to significant volumes of waste wood, there may be an opportunity here.
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