Sep 3, 2026 · 19 min
Cardboard’s decline squeezes Southern timber farmers
The Cardboard Box Economy Is Breaking Down
A shift in packaging and pulp markets is forcing landowners to reconsider the forests, businesses, and traditions built around them.
- 1More efficient packaging, recycling, and plastic mailers have reduced U.S. cardboard demand since its 1999 peak.
- 2Cheap overseas pulp and Southern mill closures have pushed pulpwood prices down, sometimes making tree removal a cost.
- 3Timber families are weighing crops, solar, development, and emerging wood markets against long-term commitments to their land.
Don't miss
Bill Howard explains how falling pulpwood revenue is changing his family’s forest-planting decisions and threatening a multigenerational business.
The brief
The cardboard box looks ubiquitous, but U.S. cardboard use per person peaked in 1999; lighter packaging, recycling, and plastic mailers have since weakened demand.
Southern tree farms once relied on pulpwood from thinnings as an early revenue stream, alongside the higher-value lumber produced by carefully managed loblolly pine stands.
Cheap eucalyptus pulp from South America and Southern paper-mill closures have collapsed pulpwood prices, leaving some farmers to pay for tree removal.
Ryan Dezember visits Bill Howard, whose fourth-generation Georgia sawmill family is changing how it plants forests as falling pulpwood revenue threatens the local timber economy.
Possible replacements include crops, solar farms, development, oriented strand board, sustainable aviation fuel, and cellulose fabrics—but none resolves the immediate uncertainty.
Howard’s attachment to land used for work, hunting, fishing, and family life shows why the timber crisis is economic and cultural, not merely industrial.
Featuring
International Paper
The Wall Street JournalListen to the full episode and explore every guest, topic, and moment on PodLume.