Press Release

Keep on Recycling, says CPI

12th January 2009

Recent articles in many of the National Media have highlighted an apparent build-up of recovered paper due to a decline in overseas demand. The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) would like to point out that this problem only arises with a small percentage of poor quality paper.

Good quality recovered paper is still in demand on the global market and we expect this to continue throughout the credit crunch. This issue of quality is fundamental to the successful recycling of all materials, not just paper.

Paper recycling continues to be a major success story in the UK and the CPI urges everyone to keep on recycling through this temporary economic downturn. There are clear environmental benefits in recycling recovered paper into new paper products rather than disposing of it through landfill and incineration.

In the UK there is a highly efficient paper manufacturing industry that consumes over 4 million tonnes per year of all types of recovered paper. This amount will increase in the coming years as a number of investments in new paper manufacturing are made. Facilities from DS Smith plc, Palm Paper and SAICA are expected to add a further 1.2 million tonnes of domestic paper recycling capacity over the next two years.

Although many people are now focused on the impending recession, CPI would like to point to the fact that for several decades, British manufacturing industry has been hollowed out. CPI says that there should be far more encouragement from Government to invest in UK manufacturing. A stronger manufacturing base would not only make us more self-sufficient in goods, it would have the same effect on recycling as we could absorb more of the UK’s recovered paper stream.

Governments should also recognise that reliance on exports for recovered paper means the UK is not in control of its own recycling destiny. What’s more, CPI believes that Government should be creating a national strategy for household recycling. This strategy should engage best practice in every region to maximise the quality of recovered paper, rather than the confusing mix of local government policies which is exacerbating current problems with recycling.