Marcal Small Steps

Scott Naturals is a great choice for those concerned with the environment, quality, and price. I find the Scott Naturals product performance to be as good as products made from trees. Also, it is widely available in many popular supermarkets and easier to find than most recycled brands.

Johnny, Yikes, you have been suckered. Yes, Scott “Naturals” may be guilty of greenwashing, but so is Marcal.

When a paper says 100% recycled, the entire thing can be made from scraps from the mill. Marcal claims they are “green” because they’ve been doing this since 1950. Guess what, most companies use these scraps even if they don’t claim to. That’s better & cheaper than landfilling it, but what makes a paper truly “green” is not the scraps so much, but how much PCR (Post Consumer Recycled)content it has. PCR is paper that has been recycled from homes and offices. PCR “closes the loop” and makes recycling possible. Marcal tries to make you believe that their paper is 100% PCR, but that is the farthest thing from the truth. Truly green papers have a high percentage of PCR. For example, the PCR content of these 100% recycled toilet papers are: Green Forest 90%; 365 80%; April Soft 80%; Earth Friendly 80%; Fiesta and Fiesta Green 80%; Natural Value 80%; Seventh Generation 80%; and Trader Joe’s 80%. In contrast, Marcal bath tissue only has a measly 30% – so that is actually really low. Support Marcal instead of Scott, slightly better. Support Marcal instead of truly green brands and that’s a sad day for forests and the environment. Marcal actually IS another “huge corporation trying to manipulate the public.” Marcal is a big mill with numerous environmental violations in its history (google Marcal + EPA and you’ll see.) Shame on them, and shame on us for believing them without question.

To locate Marcal’s 100% recycled paper products you can visit their website http://www.marcalsmallsteps.com where you can enter your zip code and locate the exact product you are looking for. In addition to this you can find their products at Staples and Office Depot.

All of us at Marcal welcome valid criticism and open discussion on blogs (and everywhere), but we want you to know that “Henry” leaves comments like the one here anytime he or she sees something written about us…and leaves them anonymously, so there is no way we can get in touch and set the facts straight. The phrases used are always very similar, the kind of pattern that almost shouts, ”spam campaign.” This kind of nameless attack isn’t in the open spirit of blogs, and we think it’s a disservice to readers and to our hard-earned reputation. The simple fact is that we make our products in a manufacturing system designed to minimize our environmental impact.
We invite the person making these attacks to come pay us a visit; we have nothing to hide! We think our actions speak for themselves; otherwise, why would a group like the NRDC cite our factory in a discussion of companies leading the way environmentally in the New York metro area? (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/egoldstein/green_apples_and_bad_apples_nr.html).
Marcal didn’t recently “paint itself green.” We’ve been using recycled paper since 1950, long before green was in. As for the lawsuit, it was settled with no admission of wrong doing, enabling the company to emerge from bankruptcy to protect and grow jobs under a new owner and management team that understands that, if you are going to market yourself as green, you better do things right.
Are we perfect? Of course not, but we are always striving to be better. We invite anyone with questions about our practices to contact us at ecofacts@marcalpaper.com