Projection of U.S. paper end-use market from 2018 to 2022

It is expected that the paper end-use market output growth will reach a peak in 2019 at 0.7 percent and experience a growth rate of 0.4 percent from 2021 to 2022. The industry has been heavily criticized due to its unsustainable deforestation of old-growth forests and illegal practices in some regions, most notably in the Amazon Rainforest. Growth in the industry has also quickly expanded in countries like China and Russia where low wages and a lack of environmental consideration are common.

China and the United States produce, by far, the world’s greatest volumes of paper and cardboard , reaching nearly 105 million metric tons and 74 million metric tons, respectively, in 2013. One of the largest companies in the world in the forest, paper, and packaging industry is International Paper, an American company with its headquarters in New York. International Paper was founded in 1898 when 18 pulp and paper mills in northeastern United States were merged. The company generated 22.4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2015. Its most common products are plastic lids and paper cups which fuel many large fast food chains like McDonald’s. The industry in the United States as a whole garnered some 100 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2014.