Hudson Valley exporter rides wave of growing waste paper marketBy Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOTElizabeth Jordan developed an interest in recycling when she was in college. After graduating, she worked for a consulting company and then at a paper mill before founding Jordan Trading Inc. in 1988. Jordan Trading, located in Kingston, NY, in upstate Ulster County, is in the business of buying waste paper and paper board from municipalities and private waste hauling companies and then selling and shipping them to paper mills abroad, primarily in Asia. China has emerged as Jordan’s number one market in the last five years. China’s booming economy has dramatically increased that country’s demand for all manner of paper products. Meanwhile, Chinese government industrial policy has promoted the use of waste paper in paper production facilities for energy conservation, cost control, and environmental reasons. Jordan Trading, of which Elizabeth Jordan is president, has won an award for its exporting activity. In 2003, the company was recognized by its peers in a Hudson Valley economic development organization when it was one of seven companies awarded the Averill Harriman International Trade. “The award recognized our accomplishments in international trade and in creating local jobs,” said Jordan. Jordan Trading’s suppliers include public and private entities dealing in municipal waste from all over the United States and Canada. “We are essentially brokers,” Jordan said. “We buy from the people cleaning and bailing the material and sell it to paper mills overseas.” The company also maintains an office in England, South of London, which operates in that country in much the same way as it does in the United States. “Exports of waste paper are increasing every year,” Jordan reported. There are three factors influencing this phenomenon: increased recycling in the United States, increased demand by overseas paper mills, and the continuing closure of domestic mills. “Every year domestic paper mills shut down so more and more waste paper gets exported,” Jordan noted. Volumes of wastepaper exports make it one the New York-New Jersey port’s and the nation’s largest export commodities, according to Jordan. Booming demand in China accounts for much of this volume. A report issued in April 2006 by the Dublin-based firm Research and Markets noted that total paper and paperboard consumption in China reached 54.4 million tons in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, which amounted to 6.3 million tons or 13.2% more than in 2003. China’s imported waste paper reached 12.3 million tons in 2004, a 31% increase over the previous year. Waste paper pulp accounted for 52% of the total paper pulp used by Chinese paper manufactures in 2004 and Chinese imports of waste paper reached nearly half of the world trade volume of waste paper. China imports waste paper primarily from the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong. Waste paper imported from the United States accounts for about 50 percent of total United States waste paper exports. Long-term relationshipsJordan Trading uses the ports of New York and New Jersey, as well as Boston and Baltimore, for its exporting activities. The shipping lines provide containers and chassis and the wastepaper is containerized at its point of origin for immediate delivery to the pier. Jordan Trading often arranges for domestic trucking, although its suppliers sometimes prefer to do so. In either case, it is usually smaller, local trucking firms that get the haulage job. “We have smaller trucking outfits located at each individual port that we use,” Jordan said. “Sometimes the supplier has a relationship with the trucker. In some ports, there are several truckers that we use. “We have used just about every container line out there,” Jordan said. “There is really nobody we haven’t used at one point or another. But we do a larger proportion of business with certain lines and we keep shipping with them. We have lo