Inside PSI: How Cross-Industry Collaboration Strengthens Paper Recycling
Meeting the Industry Where It Is
Paper recycling is one of the most established pillars of the circular economy.
As a senior consultant at Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), Matt Todd works at the intersection of paper markets, material recovery, and industry stakeholders. Through his work with clients like the Foodservice Packaging Institute, he stays connected to paper recovery pathways and the dynamics across the value chain.
That work brought him into the orbit of the Paper Stock Industries (PSI) chapter, where he recently joined the board. Here, Matt shares what PSI is, why it matters, and how cross-industry collaboration shapes the future of paper recycling.
What PSI Is and Why It Matters
PSI, the Paper Stock Industries chapter, operates within ReMA (the Recycled Materials Association, formerly ISRI). While ReMA encompasses a broad range of recyclable materials, PSI exists to ensure that paper has a distinct and focused voice within the organization.
The chapter is responsible for maintaining and evolving the grade specifications that govern how recovered paper is traded. These specs cover everything from post-consumer grades including mixed paper, SOP, and OCC, industrial grades like DLK and SWL, and specialty grades like poly-coated cup stock fiber streams. They are the shared language of the recovered paper marketplace.
PSI brings together a wide range of stakeholders: MRF operators, haulers, paper mill companies, brokers, and others who buy, sell, process, and consume recovered fiber. The chapter creates a precompetitive space where these parties can work together on the policies, specs, and industry dynamics that affect them all.
As Matt explains, PSI has worked to maintain its identity and its influence within ReMA, ensuring that the recovered paper sector does not get overshadowed by other material streams. That independence has allowed the chapter to remain a meaningful forum for paper-specific issues, from grade specifications to policy developments like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
"PSI is really about the spec side, the policy side of paper recycling. It is made up of folks in that industry, whether they are MRF operators, haulers, or paper mill companies that consume and produce paper."
- Matt todd, RRS consultant
Challenges and How PSI Responds
The paper recycling industry faces two interconnected challenges. The composition of recovered fiber has shifted significantly, with brown packaging now dominating the consumer side while traditional streams like office paper and newspaper have declined. At the same time, contamination remains a persistent issue for post-consumer grades, as mixed paper bales often contain non-fiber materials that mills end up paying for. These are system-wide problems requiring coordinated responses across the value chain.
PSI addresses this by creating a space for structured dialogue and collaborative problem-solving, ensuring grade specs stay current and that new developments are addressed collectively. A recent example: a multi-year effort to include post-consumer paper cups as part of a new grade specification (that included multiple types of poly-coated SBS fiber types) did not pass. Reasoning included questions about the availability of this material in the marketplace, and the flexibility of existing bale specifications to accommodate available volumes. But the process led ReMA to update its inbound MRF spec to include paper cups, making them more accepted at recovery facilities. That kind of incremental progress, where dialogue leads to a concrete policy shift, is how PSI moves the industry forward.
Why RRS Shows Up, and Why It Matters
For RRS, involvement in PSI is about staying connected to the realities of the marketplace. As a consulting firm, RRS needs to understand the dynamics shaping recovered paper markets, and PSI provides a direct line to those dynamics. Matt emphasizes that this is about listening and learning, not promotion. It is about building relationships with the people doing the work and making sure the insights RRS brings to clients are grounded in real-world conditions.
That engagement pays off directly for clients. Whether it is tracking shifts in fiber availability, understanding how policy developments like EPR might affect recovery programs, or identifying opportunities in emerging material streams, the insights from PSI flow into the solutions RRS provides. It is the difference between advising based on secondhand information and advising from direct engagement with the people making decisions in the marketplace.
Despite the challenges, Matt is optimistic. His reasoning is simple: reusing materials is better than constantly sourcing new ones. That logic, combined with growing collaboration across the industry, gives him confidence that the system will continue to evolve in the right direction. The work happening through PSI is proof that the people behind paper recycling are committed to making it work for the long term.