In extreme heat, with outdoor temperatures above 45°C in Doha’s industrial area, foreign workers process cardboard at a paper recycling plant in August 2018. The facility, operated by Elite Paper Recycling, a Qatari company launched three years earlier, handles several tonnesQatar Tribune – Elite Paper Recycling Company collects over 140 tonnes of waste paper each day, 2021 of waste cartons and papers per hour. The recovered material is converted into kraft paper, carton boxesElite Paper Recycling and egg trays that are in rising demand in Qatar as average consumption of paper-based products per person increased by 75%Food and Agriculture Organization – FAO Yearbook of Forest Products, 2000-2019 over the first two decades of the 21st century.

This surge is echoed worldwide. The global output of paper-based products has swelled five-foldFood and Agriculture Organization – Pulp production and paper usage, 2021 since the early 1960s to over 400 million tonnesFood and Agriculture Organization – Statistical Yearbook, 2025 in 2023, more than halfFood and Agriculture Organization – Statistical Yearbook, 2025 of which are manufactured in Asia. Even as demand for papers used for printing, writing, and communication has declined in the digital era, the consumption of packaging containing paper fibres is on the rise,Food and Agriculture Organization – Statistical Yearbook, 2025 fuelled by globalised supply chains, online shopping, and food delivery. Underlying this flow of carton boxes is a resource-intensive industry that consumes large amounts of energy, water, and chemicals.Veolia – Producing more and polluting less Paper recycling, too, involves mixing recovered paper with water to re-pulp it into fibres, often with chemicalsRestore Group – Understanding the paper recycling process to remove inks and impurities.

Although the earliest known evidence of paper use dates back to ancient China,Xinhuanet – Research suggests Chinese paper-making older than previously thought, 2016 papermaking is commonly attributedRobert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking – The Birth of Papermaking to Cai Lun, an official serving under the second Han dynasty, whose rule spanned two centuries in the early Common Era. Over the ensuing two millennia, paper production has never formed a closed loop. It has instead required a continual input of new raw materials as paper can be recycled only a finite number of times, on average five to sevenU.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Paper Recycling Facts and Figures, 2016 due to the progressive shortening and degradation of fibres during each recycling cycle.

As a result, roughly halfBureau of International Recycling – Paper and Board recycling, 2020 of paper-based products manufactured worldwide each year are produced from new pulp made from plant-based cellulose fibres, chiefly derived from wood. Human activity has wiped out nearly a quarterUnited Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Safeguarding the world’s forests, 2018 of the world’s forest cover over the last three centuries, primarily to expand the surface under cultivation. “We need to save not just Qatar but the whole planet,” Elite Paper Recycling’s founder Abdallah al-Suwaidi told a Qatari newspaper.The Peninsula – EPR collecting over 90% of waste paper in Qatar, 2021 At the company’s plant in Doha, each tonne of recovered cartons extends the life of fibres. Yet, it remains part of a system that still depends on continuous inputs of new material, while contributing to facilitating widespread acceptance of disposable paper-based packaging.