Evening star., 1946-10-17
Paper
Shortage Hits
dc. Laundries
One Concern Forced
To Use Christmas
Type for Bundles

its bundles in Christmas paper and
others predict they may have to re-
turn clean garments in cloth laun-
dry bags, it was learned today.
Spokesman for a dozen laundries
reported the paper shortage was
worse now than at any time during
the war. The average supply
of any kind of paper on their
shelves ranges from one to three
weeks, they said
Department store managers, who
met this week to discuss steps to get
paper, said they were salvaging
paper from their shipments in order
to wrap packages.
Paper Company Stock Depleted.
One owner said he didn't see how
he could keep his laundry operating
If he couldn't return clean laundry
wrapped, but most of the laundries
hoped to find some way to keep bum
dies clean after the paper now on
their shelves is gone.
A spokesman for the r. P. An
drews Paper Co., which supplies pa
per to some of the laundries, said
the company has had no wrapping
paper in stock for six weeks and
didn't expect any.
He said paper was on order, but
it had not been shipped and he
didn't know when it would arrive.
George N. Walker, executive sec
retary of the Laundry-Dry Cleaning
Owners Association, said it ap-
peared now that the laundries would
run out of paper before new supply
could be obtained.
He said he had checked with all
the supplies but without success.
Laundries are using every scrap Of
paper they can find to get the bum
dies wrapped and some are even
cutting up dry cleaning bags, he
said.
Shirts in Stapled Cardboard.
The Ambassador Laundry has
started using silver and white
Christmas paper. The Morningsids
Laundry said it was stapling the
ends of cardboard together as q
wrapping for shirts instead of put
ting a separate covering of paper
over them.
A Morningside official said he had
procured a 10-day's supply of
white paper at 1877 cents a pound as
compared with wrapping paper pre-
viously bought at cents pound.
He said he had been sent a sample
of some black paper at 18 cents a
pound which he had to reject be-
cause the black came off on the
laundry.
The Dupont Laundry said it had
a. months supply of waxed paper
which costs. more and is imprac-
tical because it makes the bundles
slippery.
A Dupont official said he under
stood some of the laundries were
lining baskets with newspapers, but
this was impractical for wet wash
because the ink comes off on the
clothes.
The West End Laundry, which is
also using waxed paper, reported
that the latest information was that
no more of even this paper is to be
had.
The Elite Laundry, which averages
Is rolls of paper a week. said it
had only three-day supply.
Some Use Butcher Paper"
I The Palace Laundry said the pa
per it now is using is so thin you
can put your finger through it."
Several of the laundries have ben
using white butcher paper" but
the Palace Laundry said it couldn't
even get that.
Complaining that boxes were as
hard to get as paper, a spokesman
for the Tolman Laundry said:
We're up against a blank wall.
We're running out like everybody
else. If We don't get some remedy,
we're going to have to wrap bundles
in newspapers.
Purchasing agents of department
stores said they never worked hard
er and got scantier results.
car of paper i'll October, 1945, an
other in November and third in
December, but has received no
promise of a delivery date on any
of them.
"The wrapping paper supply is
tighter now than it was during the
war;" one store official said. He
attributed it to the fact that paper
manufacturers are converting the
pulp normally used for ordinary
brown wrapping paper into higher
priced book and magazine paper.
He also predicted there would be
no shortage of Christmas wrapping
paper since it sells at higher price
than the regular craft paper.
Stores Salvage Boxes.
One store that used 60 tons of pa
PEI a year before the war has
had only 10 tons since January /.
All of the larger stores said they
were salvaging all the boxes and
corrugated paper that shipments ar
rived in and were using them for
wrapping purposes.
The only optimistic view of the
shortage was taken by Paul D. Ker-
man, president of the District Gro
cery Stores, Inc, who said "the lack
of paper has been one of our minor
problems"
Meat counters use most of the
wrapping paper in grocery store"
he explained THE lack of meat
meant that a roll of paper, which
usually lasted days, has been last
ing 80 days"
He said most stores had built up
a backlog which should last for sew
eral days, but stated stores had only
a fraction of their needs in paper
bags and there was no sign of quick
improvement in the supply.
/ Do You Know That
| Fifty-five per cent of the