When looking for recycled content products, what do the terms “postconsumer,” “pre-consumer” and “total recycled content” mean?

Recycled products may contain either a percentage of materials collected from office/curbside recycling programs (postconsumer), a percentage of materials generated after the manufacture of a product but before it reaches the end-user (pre-consumer) and/or virgin materials. The combination of postconsumer and pre-consumer content provides the total recycled content. For example, recycled content copy paper with 30% postconsumer and 10% pre-consumer content would have 40% total recycled content.

Recycled products, however, may not always contain postconsumer content. Remember to ask for postconsumer recycled content when purchasing products, to support manufacturers that use the recyclables you set out at home or at work for recycling collection. Below are the formal definitions for these terms:

"Postconsumer Material" means a finished material which would normally be disposed of as a solid waste, having reached its intended end-use and completed its life cycle as a consumer item, and does not include manufacturing or converting wastes.

“Pre-consumer Material” means material or by-products generated after manufacture of a product is completed but before the product reaches the end-use consumer. Pre-consumer material does not include mill and manufacturing trim, scrap, or broke which is generated at a manufacturing site and commonly reused on-site in the same or another manufacturing process.

“Recycled Content” means the total percentage of recovered material in a product, including pre-consumer and postconsumer materials.