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sustainabletimes 15 www.binfo.co.uk

The UK Confederation of Paper Industries and the European Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) both recently published annual reports on paper recycling.

In the UK, eight million tonnes of waste paper and board (not just offce paper) was collected for recycling in 2010. This was 150,000 tonnes fewer than in 2009, which, combined with a 1.2% increase in paper and board consumption, meant that the UK recycling rate declined slightly from 67% to 65% (source: CPI).

Due to a lack of capacity in the UK paper recycling industry – domestic use of recovered paper fell by 1.5% in 2010 – most (54%) of the waste collected in the UK is sent overseas for recycling. Some goes to Europe, but more than three quarters (77%) is sent to the Far East, especially China which takes 61% of exported waste paper and board or almost one third of all the waste paper and board collected in the UK. This sounds a lot but rising demand for recovered paper in Europe, which took 22% of the UK’s waste in 2010 compared to 14% in 2009, meant that the proportion being sent to the Far East was 8% lower than in 2009. All this underlines that waste is a global business – as is the manufacture of recycled paper.

Following m-real’s decision a few years ago to move the production of market leading Evolve recycled paper to Alizay in France, there are no recycled offce papers made in the UK. (Evolve and the Alizay mill are now up for sale and could disappear/be closed if m-real doesn’t fnd a buyer of the brands and/or mill by the end of September.)

Closed loop

Evolve caught the imagination of paper buyers when it was launched because it was made in the UK from UK waste. This closed loop concept is still used as a marketing tool by a number of suppliers even if the paper is now made abroad. Today, Banner Business Services and Robert Horne offer closed loop systems combining waste paper collection,

recycling and paper sales in a single service.

Banner Business Services, part of the offce2offce contract stationery group, has been offering a closed loop recycling service since February 2010 when it took delivery of 16,000 boxes of copier paper made from waste paper collected from public sector organisations including HM Customs and Excise. One of the strengths of Banner’s offering – essential considering its customer base – is the option of document shredding at a secure shredding facility or on the customer’s premises using one of sister company Banner Document Services’ mobile shredding units.

To meet customers’ concerns about data security, Robert Horne has now added document shredding to its yoyo service in a three-year partnership with The Shredding Alliance (TSA), a network of independent document shredding and recycling companies. Under the terms of the agreement, TSA will provide a collection service from customers’ premises, secure destruction of confdential waste paper either via on-site or off-site shredding and a guarantee that yoyo sourced paper is returned to the fbre bank for recycling into yoyo paper.

Critics of closed loop recycling schemes question how it is possible to trace waste through recycling, pulping and re-manufacture and argue that closed loop is just a marketing ploy – albeit a compelling one. But if it prevents waste going to landfll and encourages people to buy 100% recycled paper at a time of stagnant demand, does that matter?

In the UK, eight million tonnes of waste paper and board was collected for recycling in 2010.

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Looping the loop

Recycling bins are a part of the furniture in modern offces. But what happens to the paper that is collected in them?

Robert Horne has added secure shredding by The Shredding Alliance to its yoyo service

The greenest of them all

There are a number of tools available to help businesses fnd the most sustainable brands. One of the best is a new online database set up by theWorldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in co-operation with paper manufacturers.

Check Your Paper ranks papers according to the source of the fbre used, recycled content, CO2 emissions, waste to landfll and water pollution. At launch, there were 100 papers with Good or Excellent scores in all the main categories, including coated and uncoated papers, newsprint, tissue, packaging and board papers and specialty papers. Premier Paper marketing director Dave Jones is a fan of the site but points out that the selection is limited and does not include every instance of a particular paper. For example, Premier’s new Evolution paper (not listed) is the same paper as the Number 1-ranked Lenza product. Jones says that the best place to get advice is from your normal supplier. “If the merchant or supplier is any good, it will have that information available and be able to tell you about CO2 emissions, energy consumed and things like that. Such information is included in the Paper Profle, a standardised format supported by almost all manufacturers,” he said.

http://checkyourpaper.panda.org