Business printing spans office pages, commercial print shops, imaging equipment, paper production and recovery. The figures below distinguish U.S. market measures from broader municipal-waste estimates, company-reported results and rough office-use guidance.
Key Business Printing Statistics
These highlights cover the most useful measures across office use, waste, markets, equipment and materials:
- In current ENERGY STAR guidance, a typical office worker uses roughly 10,000 copy-paper sheets per year.
- In the same typical-office example, about 45% of copy paper reaches the recycling bin by the end of the day.
- ENERGY STAR estimates that 10%-35% of printed pages are left at the printer and never picked up in office printing.
- ENERGY STAR estimates that certified printers and copiers can deliver up to 35% energy savings versus conventional equipment.
- In a U.S. all-certified-equipment scenario, annual electricity-cost savings would exceed $32 million.
- The same U.S. scenario would prevent 596 million pounds of greenhouse-gas emissions annually.
- U.S. municipal solid waste contained 67.39 million tons of paper and paperboard in 2018.
- Paper and paperboard represented 23.1% of total U.S. municipal solid-waste generation in 2018.
- About 45.97 million tons of U.S. paper and paperboard were recycled in 2018.
- The U.S. paper-and-paperboard recycling rate was 68.2% in 2018.
- U.S. office-type paper generation declined from 7.42 million tons in 2000 to 3.97 million tons in 2018.
- Other commercial printing in U.S. municipal solid waste declined from 7.38 million tons in 2000 to 2.00 million tons in 2018.
- U.S. commercial printing excluding screen and books recorded $67.504 billion in 2018 sales, shipments or revenue.
- That same U.S. NAICS 323111 segment recorded $61.416 billion in 2020 during the pandemic period.
- U.S. paper and paperboard mills operated at an 87.5% rate in 2024.
- U.S. paper and paperboard production increased 3.2% in 2024, while capacity fell 2.0% to 78.1 million tons.
- Printing-writing paper capacity fell 6.9% in the United States in 2024 and dropped below 9 million tons.
- HP reported $4.5 billion in worldwide printing net revenue in fiscal 2024 Q4.
- BLS reported 339.7 thousand U.S. employees in NAICS 323 in June 2026.
- The 2024 U.S. paper recycling rate was 60%-64%, representing about 46 million tons recycled.
Contents
- Office paper use and print waste
- Paper and commercial-printing waste data
- U.S. commercial-printing market statistics
- Paper capacity and production trends
- Printing equipment, energy and employment
- Recycling and material recovery
Business Printing Statistics: Office Paper Use and Print Waste
ENERGY STAR’s current imaging-equipment guidance uses a rough typical-office example rather than a probability sample. It estimates roughly 10,000 copy-paper sheets per worker per year, with about 45% ending up in the recycling bin by the end of the day.
The same guidance estimates that 10%-35% of total pages are left at the printer and never picked up. These are office-use estimates, so they should not be generalized to every workplace or treated as an administrative count.
| Office measure | Figure | Population or scope |
|---|---|---|
| Copy-paper use | Roughly 10,000 sheets per worker per year | Typical office worker |
| Copy paper in recycling bin | About 45% by day’s end | Typical-office example |
| Pages left uncollected | 10%-35% | Office printing |
| Potential certified-equipment energy saving | Up to 35% | Versus conventional equipment |
ENERGY STAR also presents an all-U.S.-imaging-equipment scenario: if all equipment were certified, annual electricity-cost savings would exceed $32 million, while greenhouse-gas emissions would fall by 596 million pounds per year. Both are scenario estimates, and the energy result depends on equipment and use profiles.
Source: ENERGY STAR, “Imaging Equipment”. The source equates the emissions figure to emissions from more than 57,000 vehicles, but the estimate remains a scenario rather than observed savings.
Business Printing Data: Paper and Commercial-Printing Waste
EPA’s material-flow estimates describe U.S. municipal solid waste, including residential and commercial streams. They are useful for scale and direction, but they are not business-only printer volumes.
In 2018, paper and paperboard accounted for 67.39 million tons, or 23.1% of total U.S. MSW generation. About 45.97 million tons were recycled, producing a paper-and-paperboard recycling rate of 68.2%, while landfills received 17.22 million tons.
| U.S. MSW paper measure | 2018 estimate | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Paper and paperboard generated | 67.39 million tons | All U.S. MSW |
| Recycled | 45.97 million tons | All U.S. MSW paper and paperboard |
| Recycling rate | 68.2% | Paper and paperboard |
| Sent to landfills | 17.22 million tons | All U.S. MSW paper and paperboard |
The longer EPA series shows paper and paperboard generation falling from 87.74 million tons in 2000 to 67.39 million tons in 2018. In 2018, paper and paperboard also represented 12.2% of MSW combusted with energy recovery.
Within the broader categories, the 2018 recycling rates were 43.1% for paper nondurable goods excluding newspapers, 64.8% for newspapers, 20.8% for paper containers and packaging excluding corrugated boxes, and 96.5% for corrugated boxes. These categories are adjacent to business printing rather than equivalent to it.
Source: EPA, “Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data”. EPA’s paper-and-paperboard figures are estimated MSW flows, not business-generated waste alone.
Business Printing Statistics: The U.S. Commercial-Printing Market
The Census Annual Survey of Manufactures measure for NAICS 323111 covers commercial printing except screen and books. It is an industry-market measure, not office printer usage.
| Year | Sales, shipments or revenue | Annual payroll |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $67.504 billion | $16.678 billion |
| 2019 | $66.262 billion | $16.193 billion |
| 2020 | $61.416 billion | $15.091 billion |
| 2021 | $63.431 billion | $15.260 billion |
The 2020 figure is explicitly a pandemic-period comparison. The payroll series follows the same segment and should not be read as total employment compensation for every business-printing activity.
EPA’s narrower material categories also show a long decline, though their definitions remain broader than printer-meter output. Office-type paper generation was 7.42 million tons in 2000, 6.62 million in 2005, 5.26 million in 2010, 4.53 million in 2015, and 3.97 million in both 2017 and 2018.
Other commercial printing generated 7.38 million tons in 2000, 2.48 million in 2010, and 2.00 million in 2018. Office-type papers represented 1.4% of total MSW product generation in 2018; equal rounded values for 2017 and 2018 do not imply identical underlying flows.
Source: EPA, “Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2018 Tables and Figures”.
Business Printing Trends in Paper Capacity and Production
AF&PA’s 2024 industry data cover about 89% of U.S. paper and paperboard capacity, with estimates completing the dataset. Capacity means potential output under full equipment, materials, labor and demand assumptions; it is not printer page volume.
U.S. paper and paperboard production increased 3.2% in 2024, while capacity declined 2.0% to 78.1 million tons. The average annual capacity decline since 2015 was 0.9%, and the 2024 operating rate was 87.5%, nearly four percentage points above 2023.
| 2024 U.S. paper-industry measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Operating rate | 87.5% |
| Production change | Increased 3.2% |
| Capacity | 78.1 million tons, down 2.0% |
| Printing-writing capacity | Down 6.9%, below 9 million tons |
| Containerboard share of total capacity | More than 50% |
The composition of capacity matters for business printing. Containerboard represented more than 50% of total U.S. paper-and-paperboard capacity, while packaging-paper capacity increased 4.6% and boxboard capacity declined 3.3% in 2024.
Printing-writing capacity, the closest measure here to office and commercial print papers, fell 6.9% and dropped below 9 million tons. That industry measure should not be treated as a direct count of pages printed by businesses.
Source: AF&PA, “AF&PA Details U.S. Paper Production and Capacity Trends”.
Business Printing Equipment, Energy and Employment Metrics
Company and labor-market measures add different perspectives to business printing. HP’s figures describe one worldwide vendor segment, while BLS’s NAICS 323 series covers U.S. printing and related support activities.
HP reported $4.5 billion in printing net revenue in fiscal 2024 Q4, up 1% year over year, with a 19.6% printing operating margin. HP commercial-printing revenue fell 1%, while commercial-printing hardware units increased 9% year over year.
| HP fiscal 2024 Q4 measure | Year-over-year result or level | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Printing net revenue | $4.5 billion; up 1% | Worldwide HP printing |
| Printing operating margin | 19.6% | HP printing segment |
| Commercial-printing revenue | Down 1% | HP-defined commercial printing |
| Commercial-printing hardware units | Up 9% | HP commercial printing |
| Total printing hardware units | Up 9.5% | HP worldwide printing |
HP consumer-printing revenue rose 3% and supplies revenue rose 2% in fiscal 2024 Q4. Those figures are adjacent company measures and should not be generalized to business printing or used as page-volume estimates.
BLS reported 339.7 thousand seasonally adjusted employees in U.S. printing and related support activities, NAICS 323, in June 2026. The BLS industry definition and employer-survey measure cover printing and related support activities, not only office equipment or commercial print shops.
Sources: HP Inc., “HP Inc. Reports Fiscal 2024 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Results”; BLS, “Printing and Related Support Activities: NAICS 323”. The June 2026 BLS value is the page’s current series value relative to the October 4, 2026 requested access date.
Business Printing Recycling and Material Recovery Statistics
AF&PA estimates that the 2024 U.S. paper recycling rate was 60%-64%, with about 46 million tons recycled. The annual total is presented as an average of about 125,000 tons per day, which is a daily equivalent rather than a daily weigh-in series.
Cardboard is a separate packaging stream: the 2024 U.S. cardboard recycling rate was 69%-74%, with more than 33 million tons recycled, or an average of about 90,000 tons per day. These cardboard figures should not be substituted for office-paper recovery.
| 2024 U.S. recovery measure | Rate | Recycled amount |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | 60%-64% | About 46 million tons |
| Cardboard | 69%-74% | More than 33 million tons |
AF&PA’s comparison says the paper industry recycled nearly 60% more paper in 2024 than in 1990. It is a rounded industry comparison across paper streams, not a business-printer-only trend.
For an earlier EPA benchmark, 4.20 million tons of U.S. paper and paperboard MSW were combusted with energy recovery in 2018, and paper and paperboard represented 11.8% of all MSW landfilled. The EPA measures cover broad MSW flows rather than business printing alone.
Sources: AF&PA, “2024 U.S. Paper and Cardboard Recycling Rates”; EPA, “Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data”.