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New Paper and Packaging Board campaign urges consumers to be papertarian

Paper and Packaging Board (P+PB) recently launched an integrated advertising campaign in the U.S. aimed at informing how choosing paper-based products is a smart choice for the forests and the environment and to encourage recycling. The focus of the campaign is on being a “papertarian.”

The North American organization launched the campaign on multiple media platforms, including television, print, digital and social media, with celebrity Retta. The new ads feature comedian Donna Meagle (NBC’s Good Girls, Parks and Recreation and HGTV’s Ugliest House in America) as Retta, the first official papertarian.

P+PB explains in a press statement that a “papertarian” is someone who lives a paper-based lifestyle. A “papertarian” does right by the planet by making the choice to use products made from paper over other products because paper comes from trees, a sustainable, renewable resource not from fossil fuels. And by recycling, they are making the most of available natural resources.

“The ads shine a positive light on the industry and tells our sustainable forest management story in a way that hasn’t been done—getting consumers to think about what a product is packaged in before or at the point of purchase and its recyclability,” said Mary Anne Hansan, president of P+PB. “We are creating a movement that reminds consumers to consider the impact of their purchases on the environment.  When forests are used to make paper and packaging products, you encourage forest replanting and restoration. In addition, paper is easily recycled into other products over and over again.”

In the ads, Retta is seen at work, home and even the grocery store pointing out the sustainable virtues of paper and paper-based product packaging and humorously correcting her intern and neighbours about the proper ways to recycle.

Numerous paper industry products are featured in the ads including ice cream and gum containers, fresh fruit carriers, cereal and pasta boxes, milk cartons, boxed water and cardboard boxes that are emptied and flattened for recycling.

Discussing the campaign, Resolute noted in a press statement that as employees in the forest sector, they are the original papertarians. This industry creates the paper products consumers rely on and embraces the qualities of what the campaign defines as uniquely papertarian. Specifically, a papertarian commits to using plant-based paper and packaging products to help them learn, be more productive, and protect the things they care about.

The new campaign shows that the paper industry is committed to sustainable forestry and that it firmly believes in its contributions, states Resolute.