Peter Seggie - Confederation of Paper Industries

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ePolitix.com speaks to Peter Seggie of the Confederation of Paper Industries about the issues involved in recovered paper recycling.

Question: What is quality recovered paper and why is the quality of recovered paper important?

Peter Seggie: Quality recovered paper is used paper that has been extracted from the waste stream for recycling into new paper products in a way that minimises its exposure to contamination. Contamination comes in many forms but is mainly associated with materials that cannot be recycled through the papermaking process or cause harm to the papermaking process. Obvious examples are things like metal, plastic, wood, or string that will simply be rejected in the first stage of the papermaking process.

Glass causes particular issues as it breaks up into a fine dust during the collection phase and is not rejected during the first stage of the process. This fine dust, like sand and small gravel, is very abrasive and causes papermaking machinery to wear away far faster than normal. Less obvious examples of contamination are things like water, grease, fat and even some types of ink. If the recovered paper is wet or contaminated with food, the fibres in the paper start to break down and become less good for papermaking. There is also the issue that you are using fuel to carry the extra water all the way from collection to the paper mill for recycling.

Finally, and this is the hardest thing to convey to the public, some paper products are not desirable for certain papermaking processes and are deemed as a contaminant by certain paper mills. An example of this is new newsprint for printing newspapers which cannot be made from old cardboard boxes. The newsprint paper mills can take a small amount of cardboard boxes but over a certain level the brown fibres start to be noticeable in the newsprint and this is not desirable when you are making a paper to be printed on and read by the public. This is one reason why there are differences in what some local authorities will accept in their kerbside collection systems.

Quality recovered paper is very important to the paper making industry for a number of reasons:

• Paper mills have to pay for the disposal of contaminants at the first stage of the papermaking process and this has an impact on their profitability.

• Contaminants have been carried from the front door of the producer of the used paper all the way through the collection and sorting process to the paper mill and this has a monetary as well as environmental cost.

• Rejected contaminants have not been recycled at the paper mill and should not be counted towards recycling targets.

• If the contaminants are recyclable through other processes, such as iron or glass works, then this is a lost opportunity for recycling.

• If glass is carried through to the papermaking process then the wear and tear on papermaking machinery increases and makes the paper mill less competitive.

• If the new paper produced from the poor quality recovered paper does not meet the quality specification of the customer then it will have to be made again with a huge financial and environmental cost to the paper mill.

If you have an interest in finding out more about this topic, please read the CPI factsheet 'Quality counts'.

Question: What is the economic impact of poorly sorted paper recovered from the UK waste stream?

Peter Seggie: As mentioned earlier there are a number of economic impacts from poorly sorted paper recovered from the UK waste stream of failing to manage the risks from contamination.

There is also the loss of value to the producer and collector of the recovered paper.

Good quality recovered paper commands a better price on the market and can lead to a differential in price of over £20 per tonne. If collectors can produce a top quality product then they can get a better price from the paper mill for the recovered paper. This means that the cost benefit can be passed back down the chain to producer and make the recycling process more cost effective; it could even reduce council taxes if the benefits can be realised and sustained.

Question: There have been suggestions that there are links between co-mingled recycling collections and lower quality recovered paper. Does the CPI believe this to be the case?

Peter Seggie: There is little opposition to the fact that collecting waste paper together with other material streams such as metal, plastic, wood and glass does increases the risk of contamination to the recovered paper and CPI supports the use of segregation wherever possible to minimise this risk.

However, there will be a need in some circumstances to use mixed dry recyclate collection systems to access harder to reach properties, particularly high rise blocks and tight terraced housing stock where space is at a premium. Where this is employed however clear, robust quality management systems must be in place to mitigate the risks otherwise this type of collection system may need to be subsidised further in the future.

The Waste and Resource Action Programme (Wrap) has demonstrated that it is possible to get quality recovered paper from mixed dry recyclable collection systems but the technology and process management systems are critical. Wrap has also shown that the cost of mixed dry recyclate collection systems are in fact higher than segregated systems, taking the whole recycling process into consideration, so there appears little benefit from adopting 'co-mingled' systems unless they are absolutely necessary.

Question: Jane Kennedy, minister for recycling in Defra, has agreed to meet with paper manufacturers to talk about the recycling market in the UK. What do you hope will be achieved at this meeting?

Peter Seggie: CPI hopes to bring some overall calm to the situation that has developed in the UK over the last five months. There is no excessive storage taking place for recovered paper and what extra storage is being required is associated predominantly with lower quality contaminated material.

The UK will need to export large quantities of recovered paper for recycling (currently over 54 per cent of what we collect) to meet EU and UK recycling targets as we use a lot of paper products but we make a relatively small amount (34 per cent). This means we cannot recycle all the paper we collect domestically.

However, we would like Defra to acknowledge this fact and look into the underlying reasons of why the UK is one of the lowest producers of paper in comparison to how much we actually consume. This needs to be understood and addressed if we are to take advantage of any upturn in the economy going forward.

CPI estimates that paper accounts for a net trade deficit to the UK of over £3bn annually and could contribute heavily to employment in the UK in the future. We would like Defra to commission Wrap to look into this as a matter of urgency and address any perceived barriers to UK investment.

Question: What steps can the government take to help maximise the quality of recovered paper?

Peter Seggie: This is a very difficult issue as central government has for all intents and purposes washed its hands of responsibility in this area by devolving responsibility to local authorities. This has led to the widespread adoption of different collection and sorting methodologies at a local level, and has also led to general public confusion on what to.

The new EU Waste Framework Directive lays specific requirements for recyclable materials to be collected separately and this should be the basis for central government to give a degree of direction to local authorities and, together with other stakeholders such as NGO's and industry, used as a lever to reduce confusion and set specific guidance for the future. This will be even more important as the directive also contains higher recycling targets for municipal waste.

Question: Recent reports in the press have suggested that local councils are forced to stockpile paper as there are no buyers for it. What are the potential implications of this for the paper industry?

Peter Seggie: Firstly it must be made clear that CPI does not believe there is mass stockpiling of recovered paper taking place. Our statistical data shows that there was a reduction in demand in November 2008 in the key Far East export markets which led to scare stories spreading in the local and national press but latest signs are that demand has returned.

The UK is more exposed than our European neighbours as our reliance on the Far East markets for recycling capacity is much higher than theirs and this perhaps explains what happened at the tail end of 2008. The UK paper industry relies on recovered paper for the vast majority of its raw material so any fall in collection levels will impact UK as well as export markets.

It is essential that the public keeps on recycling to ensure future investment in the UK and the economic and environmental benefits or recycling are achieved. Paper recycling in the UK is a huge success story and a simple blip in the market should not be used to change the UK’s focus on recycling in the future.

Question: Would better quality recovered paper help the recycling market to pick up during the economic downturn?

Peter Seggie: Better quality recovered paper will always command the best opportunity for market development in any economic environment but like any other raw material it relies on end market development.

Unlike a true market, paper recovery for recycling will continue as there are statutory targets in place across Europe to extract the material from the residual waste stream. This means that even where demand falls there will be material available for sale and will mean prices will inevitably fall as we saw in the last few months of 2008.

However, as the economy slows then the generation of waste paper will also fall and there will be less available on the market; this should stabilise the market again as indeed we are seeing now. This lag in supply to demand will always cause worries to stakeholders but as we start to understand it better then we can build it into our calculations on the supply side.

Paper recycling is for the future as well as the present, and we should put systems in place now to ensure only quality recovered paper is extracted from the waste stream so we can all continue to take advantage of the economic and environmental benefits of paper recycling.