PART II. PAPER SALVAGE MEASURES

A. REUSE OF CONTAINERS

The manufacture of paper board from which paper containers are made requires approximately one-half of the total supply of the raw materials used for paper making. It is imperative that action be taken by each agency to insure the proper handling, reuse, and disposal of all available containers. Specific suggestions are:

1. Use care in opening:

(a) Corrugated and solid fiber containers.-If sealed, break seal on flaps by sliding a wooden paddle back and forth, not up and down, underneath flaps. This does not damage containers. Collapse box, tie in bundles. If gum-taped, cut tape, collapse box, and tie in bundles.

(b) Set-up paper boxes.-Carefully collapse bodies and covers by cutting the four corner stays. Pack flat in used corrugated containers. Corners can be retaped and the boxes used again.

(c) Paper bags.-Never slash or cut tops off sewn bags; pull stitch to open. 2. Keep containers dry and free from dirt, tears, and rips.

3. Lift bags-do not drag them.

4. Reuse containers:

(a) For outgoing shipments from the agency.

(b) For handling of materials within the agency.

5. Arrange for disposition of containers. Arrange with appropriate General Services Administration regional office for disposition of excess containers along following lines:

(a) Where Federal Supply Service direct deliveries of supplies are made, excess containers should be returned at that time.

(b) Upon advice of General Services Administration regional office, make excess containers available to other agencies in immediate adjacent areas that may require their use.

(c) Upon advice of the General Services Administration regional office, dispose of excess containers as waste paper. In those locations when handling and transportation charges would be excessive in relation to reuse salvage, and volume is not sufficient to warrant sale as waste paper, dispose in same manner as other refuse.

B. SALVAGE OF WASTE PAPER

Salvageable waste paper is one of the principle raw materials needed in the manufacture of paper and paper products and the chief substitute for pulp wood. Unsalvageable waste paper includes such items as cups, waxed and greased paper, and most paper which has been contaminated with other refuse or chemically impregnated so as to render it useless for recovery. The salvage of waste paper will:

1. Release space, equipment, and manpower that can be used for other purposes.

2. Convert a dormant investment into a cash recovery by the Treasury. 3. Aid in relieving the over-all paper shortage.

Records, as defined in the act of July 7, 1943 (44 U. S. C. 366), may not be disposed of except in accordance with the requirements of that law and the regulations of the National Archives Service of the General Services Administration. (See manual on Disposition of Federal Records, National Archives publication No. 50-3.) This manual further prescribes the methods of disposal of records as follows:

1. Sell as waste paper. If necessary, the records must first be macerated or otherwise treated to destroy their record content, or the contract for sale must include a clause prohibiting their resale as records or documents.

2. Destroy by burning or otherwise. If the records cannot be sold to advantage or if the agency believes it necessary in order to prevent the disclosure of information prejudicial to the interests of the United States or of individuals, they may be destroyed by burning.

All other papers and those salvaged above, should be sold as waste paper wherever practicable, or otherwise disposed of as follows:

1. In Washington:

(a) By authorizing the Superintendent of Documents to dispose of material held by him for the agency, or held by the agency.

(b) By direct sale under General Services Administration waste-paper contracts.

2. In the field:

(a) By sale under General Services Administration contract. If no such contract is available, by sale on a bid basis under agency procedures when quantities warrant.

(b) By donation to local public institutions or municipal salvage committees when quantities do not warrant sale, or are in isolated locations. Otherwise day by day accumulations should be disposed of through the janitor service or regular building disposal system in which event an attempt should be made to determine that the waste paper is salvaged and not destroyed by burning. Retention of accumulations of waste paper should be avoided to prevent fire hazards. Compliance with fire rules and regulations must be observed.

For the duration of the present critical paper shortage, many problems will no doubt arise in connection with the salvage of paper in isolated areas. Likewise, because of the manpower shortage and expense of sorting, some waste paper dealers may decline accumulations of certain grades of paper. Unless (in the first case) the quantities are very small, or (in the second case) the paper refused is so contaminated as to render it useless for recovery, all instances of this kind should be referred to the appropriate regional office of the General Services Administration.

C. SALVAGE OF SURPLUS PUBLICATIONS

Considerable progress has been made in the disposition of obsolete and infrequently called-for publications held by the Superintendent of Documents. Agencies should increase their assistance to the Superintendent of Documents in authorizing the disposition of obsolete publications and those publications which have little or no demand that are currently being held by the Government Printing Office.

Each agency should perodically review printed publications, posters, records files, documents, etc., on hand and promptly dispose of unnecessary items in accordance with existing laws and regulations. Agencies should issue adequate instructions and provide sufficient follow-up to assure themselves that everything possible to reduce the use of paper, to eliminate excess copies, and to dispose of waste paper that comes under the category of salvageable waste paper is being done and that adequate recovery both in Washington and in the field is made from such salvage.

D. REGULATIONS PERTAINING TO THE DISPOSAL OF RECORDS AS WASTE PAPER

Listed below are the most important laws and regulations, together with interpretations and explanations, relative to disposal of records, documents, and waste paper.

1. It is provided in the act of January 12, 1895 (44 U. S. C. 78) that: "All public documents accumulating in the several executive departments, bureaus, and offices not needed for official use shall be annually turned over to the Superintendent of Documents for distribution or sale."

2. The Joint Committee on Printing has defined "documents" as follows: "The term 'document' shall be construed as applying to forms and publications, such as pamphlets and books, and to such publications as are expressly designated to be documents, of which there is a free public distribution."

3. The Act of July 7, 1943 (44 U. S. C. 366), defines the word "records" and then further states that:

"Library and museum material made or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes, extra copies of documents preserved only for convenience of reference, and stocks of publications and of processed documents are not included within the definition of the word "records" as used in this act.

4. The Federal Records Act of 1950 (41 U. S. C. 281-290) provides for the records management of Federal agencies and for archival administration. The National Archives Service of the General Services Administration has respon

sibility in the two above areas and attention is directed to this Service for advice and assistance on records and archival problems and their relation to disposal of documents.

Mr. WARD. It is necessary for the individual agencies to take primary responsibility for economy and efficiency in their departments. Someone asked that question awhile ago about who within an agency should be responsible. The Secretary of the Department is responsible for the conduct of that Department. That concept has been greatly strengthened by the work of the Hoover Commission and we feel that they should pick up items of that kind and see that they have a strong and vigorous program for standardization of forms, elimination of unnecessary forms, for buying only what is needed, for making proper use of what is bought, and all the other economy measures. The Secretary should see that the bureau heads carry out similar programs within their respective bureaus.

It is very difficult for any over-all control agency, whether it is the Government Printing Office or the Bureau of the Budget or the General Services Administration to get into the operations of an agency to the point where they tell them they cannot do this or they cannot do that, because the head of an agency is responsible for carrying out the program that Congress laid down in the basic legislation for that bureau and you cannot divide that responsibility by letting everyone tell them just how they should run the bureau. But agencies such as the General Services Administration, that have authority to go into any agencies of the Government and make surveys as to what use is being made of property and what property is being bought, whether they have replacement standards and standards for procurement, that kind of agency can make surveys and can report to the Congress-in fact, they are supposed to under the law-on matters that they find

need correction.

I believe that is all I have in the way of a general statement. Mr. Vanderwende is prepared to go into detail on this bulletin and other specific conservation matters that the Bureau of the Budget has done in recent years, if you care to have him do that.

Mr. DOLLIVER. I would like to hear from Mr. Vanderwende, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WOLVERTON. You may proceed.

Mr. VANDERWENDE. In the interest of conservation and better practices in the areas where paper would be of large use, the Bureau of the Budget over a period of years has issued documents of one kind or another informative to or mandatory on agencies as to ways in which they could accomplish some of these objectives. I have here some of the types of bulletins and circulars that we have issued which puts the responsibility on the head of the agency, as Mr. Ward said, the department head or his designated officials, to carry out some of these programs. By so doing they naturally will result in economies. along the line.

Where we make economies of course we hear very little about it. Where we make mistakes we get in the paper. We might read of one case in the paper but we do not read of the other hundred cases where some of these basic good management principles have been applied. So we take those in stride.

We have put out a Bureau circular, Circular No. A-3, Government Periodicals, which requires certain types of periodicals issued

by the Government agencies to have Bureau approval. Request is made each year. Approval is given for the number of pages, the amount of money they can spend on it, and the agency must justify that type of publication. This is the type of publication that comes out at periodic intervals and usually has the number and volume in the corner. That circular was issued back in 1943 and revised in 1950.

We have another circular, A-12, which discusses the "Effectuation and Distribution of Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Regulations." It attempts to tell the agencies how they can save money by having reprints of the documents as they are published in the Federal Register, which is a great saving in money. This arrangement was worked out in conjunction with the Government Printing Office.

We had another circular that was issued in regard to "Publications and Informational Data." It was rescinded because certain parts of it were no longer effective, but in the rescision the agencies were cautioned and warned they must make a continuing effort to reduce the publications and amount of printing material they put out.

We have another circular A-17, in which we established the procedure for standardizing forms throughout the Government. In the past few years we have standardized something over 100 forms. In many cases we do not reduce the number of forms used. We do of course reduce the cost of printing the forms where you only print one form instead of printing 100.

Mr. DOLLIVER. Will you give us an example of some of that standardization?

Mr. VANDERWENDE. The Government Printing Office publishes a catalog of all standard forms. There are two series in that group. One series is put out by the Bureau of the Budget and the other series is put out by the General Accounting Office. Those forms when they become standard forms are mandatory for use. By such standardization we are able to check some of the employee requirements, the procedures, and so forth, and develop work standards and work simplification procedures as a result of every agency using the same form. Form standardization is provided for in our Circular No. A-17 which has been in existence for some time.

These circulars all tend toward the reduction of the use of paper and better management. The circular A-20, Regulations Governing the Procuring of Printing, Binding, and Blank Book Work, was issued at the request of Senator Hayden. This circular does nothing more than the reiteration of what is in the basic printing law. It is another way of reminding many of the people down the line in the organization who would see the Bureau circular and may not see the law. It only recites certain items in the law calling them again to the attention of the heads of the agencies and their respective employees as to what they would be doing.

We have another circular, A-24, Standardization of Medical Examination Forms. We have standardized certain medical examination forms which has been a very big step forward in the standardization of some of the medical practices among the agencies. There can be an exchange of doctors between agencies and the doctors would not have to learn a whole new system of forms all over again. This has helped in the integrating of many of the activities in the medical group. We have also standardized the clinical record forms, Cir

cular 32. This is probably the largest single group of forms printed by the Government Printing Office. They run into the billions. They are used in all hospital operations and medical facilities. Here again it makes it possible to have standardization in medical operations so they can transfer employees from one operation to another without having to go through the learning of new procedures, new forms, and new methods.

We have another circular which has been in existence for a good many years, and it is still very active and followed very closely. It is our Circular No. A-33, Standards of Utilization: Letterheads, Manifold (Tissue) Sheets, Memorandum Forms, and Envelopes, in which we have standardized the size of stationery, specifying what kind of printing can be on it. We have standardized certain envelopes and told what kind of printing can be on them. We have standardized memorandum forms which are used throughout the Government, and also the intermessenger envelope.

The intermessenger envelope is very interesting in that several years ago, working with the Government Printing Office in connection with the specifications, we revised it and provided a button-andstring fastener on it. The envelope costs slightly more than the previous envelope we were using, but we have now found that instead of getting three to five uses, we get 10 to 15 uses out of the same envelope.

We have effected some economies in this area and the agencies are all required to stay within the framework of that particular circular for their stationery.

Then we have one of our most important circulars, which is Circular No. A-40. It was formerly Regulation A and was promulgated on the basis of the Federal Reports Act under which the Bureau of the Budget is required to review Government plans and all forms for collecting information from the public. The Statistical Standards Division is responsible for that program. We know and have facts to prove that they have eliminated probably as many forms as they have allowed in the collection of data from the public, the making of forms more acceptable for answering, and eliminating duplication of reporting, so that two or more different agencies of the Government will not be going to the same group of people for the same type of information. They have been recently strengthened in that program by an executive order from the President.

On top of those circulars the Bureau of the Budget has issued certain types of bulletins as guides to agencies on better management, one of which is Simplifying Procedures Through Forms Control, which tells how agencies can get their forms under control, reduce the number of forms, and reduce the complexity of forms. That has been followed by many agencies which have pretty active programs. Many agencies have done nothing about it.

We also have a bulletin Appraisal and Control of Duplicating Services. It sets up a guide by which agencies can get control and maintain the proper type of records in their duplicating operations to see that they are getting the most efficiency and economy out of their operations.

Mr. WOLVERTON. Before you proceed on another matter, I assume it would be appropriate to have these separate circulars made a part