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Text and Cover (Stationery, Envelopes, Heavy Text, and Cover Papers) Mill Sales Until a few years ago, it was unheard of for a paper mill to sell directly to end-users. Typically marketing and distribution of papers is handled through partnered paper merchants and other sources further removed from the paper mill. With the advent of the internet, paper mills have started to create online sales direct to the public. Below are some paper companies that handle small orders through their websites. Crane & Co Costa Rica Natural Paper French Paper Fox River Paper Company Gilbert Paper Green Field Paper Company Mohawk Paper Mills Neenah Paper New Leaf Paper Southworth Vision Paper Environmental Paper Specialty Distributors Conservatree has long known about a special group of paper distributors that have dedicated their business to making environmental papers available. Certainly there is New Leaf Paper which is listed with the paper mills above. In addition, there are also the businesses listed below. All offer a variety of recycled paper and paper products, and some offer printing and production services. These businesses are operated people who are knowledgeable about issues of environmental paper, which is not always the case with standard paper distributors. Many of these businesses have been around for a long time and have helped sustain the market for environmental paper. Dolphin Blue Greenline Paper Co. Greg Barber Company Treecycle Recycled Paper Paper Choice (Canada) Online Retail There are a few online sources of paper produced by a number of mills. Two that we know about are The Paper Mill Store and Paper.com. Both have some information on the environmental attributes of certain brands they carry. Using the Conservatree paper guide should help you be able to better make your choices. The Paper Mill Store Paper.com Retail Paper Stores Distributor Retail Stores Most paper wholesalers, known as paper merchants, sell only to large customers such as commercial printers and institutions. There are large minimum order requirements, require existing accounts and never handle “walk-in business”. However many of the paper merchants do have retail operations where the public can purchase many of the text & cover papers we have listed here. Once a best-kept secret, paper merchant distributor retail stores are catching on with the public as a source for environmental paper. Originally, these were set up by some of the major paper merchants to serve the small-quantity needs of quick printers and graphic designers. They usually carry a wide range of text, cover and printing stocks, as well as envelopes and office papers. They provide extremely competitive prices, and sell in quantities as small as a ream and sometimes even a few sheets. They typically do little advertising and are often located in industrial parts of cities, hidden from the usual shopping traffic. These retail stores are well-known to local printers but have been slow to grasp the possibilities of the emerging small business and home office markets. Few outside the printing and design communities even know they exist, that they are open to the public or that some even deliver for larger orders. Not all paper merchants operate such stores. Those that do usually supply only the papers they carry as a major paper distributor, not an entire selection of all the environmental papers available. To track down a specific paper, you need to determine which merchant carries paper from the mill that makes it, and then find out whether that merchant has a retail store outlet. Fortunately, many papers are carried by more than one local distributor. Buying paper from a distributor retail store can be particularly helpful if you're looking for a specific paper in a quantity too small for your printer to order it (printers have minimums from distributors, too), or if you're buying second sheets or envelopes to match your letterhead, or if you want small quantities of paper for a use other than commercial printing, such as printing letterhead out of your computer word processing program or brochures you'll reproduce at a copy shop. You can browse the retail shops, too, and sometimes even take home a sample, similar to the practice of wallpaper and fabric stores, to decide whether it will work best with your plans. If samples are not displayed, ask for a mill swatchbook. While the distributor-owned retail store may have only a partial selection of papers on-site, you can usually get access to any paper stocked by the merchant if you are willing to wait a few days for your order to arrive from the main warehouse. The downside to the retail stores is that the sales people often are not knowledgeable about the environmental papers they carry. But The Conservatree Guide to Environmentally Sound Printing and Writing Papers should fill in some of those gaps. Paper Retail Stores (Regional) Kelly Paper – AZ, CA JC Paper – No. CA, NV Matz Paper – So. CA Paper Zone – CA, OR, WA Mini Mac Paper Store (Mac Paper) – SE USA Frank Parsons Express (Frank Parsons) – Mid Atlantic Lewis Paper Place – Midwest Paper & More Stores (Shaughnessy, Kniep Hawe) – MO The Paper Station – Overland Park, KS Pick Quick Papers – NJ, NY, CT, MA FasClampitt ( Clampitt Paper) – TX, OK Bosworth Paper Chase ( Bosworth Paper) – TX OK Paper Centers (Olmsted –Kirk Paper) – TX Millcraft Express Paper Stores ( Millcraft Paper Co.) – OH, MI, PA Anchor Paper Express (Anchor Paper) – MN Dennis Paper Cash N Carry (Dennis Paper) – Nashville TN Paper Retail Stores (National) Xpedx Paper & Graphics (division of International Paper) Paper Plus (Unisource)
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