THE PAPER TRAIL EACH BALE OF WASTE PAPER IS AN ADVENTURE FOR RECYCLERS.(LIFE & LEISURE)

Byline: MICHAEL LOPEZ Staff writer

The paper trail of Capital Region living leads to a warehouse at the Encore Paper mill in South Glens Falls.

Here, the refuse of our days rises in dozens of 1,200-pound bales that will be gone by the end of the day, milled into toilet paper, napkins and paper towels.

Someone has cleaned out their closet, tossing a 1973 Road & Track. A seed company has overestimated its production of spinach, and the unused packages have ended up at Encore. In our work time, we produce computer spread sheets and in our leisure time we read gothic novels like ``The Beckoning Ghost.''

It all lands here.

As Jeffrey L. Davis, Encore's vice president, puts it, ``Each bale is an adventure.''

That adventure begins with what has become a mundane chore, since New York state ordered your community to start recycling eight years ago. Now, filling the recycling bin, generally with bottles and cans clanging at the bottom and newspaper tucked into a brown paper bag resting on top, is as part of the household routine as taking out the trash.

Unlike the mid-1980s, when communities in some cases had no market for a glut of materials and had to pay to recycle, waste now finds its way to newsprint mills in Trois-Rivieres …