A Global View — and how many times can paper be recycled?
(07.07.03)

Finland's high reputation for quality papermaking is matched by its variety of skills in trades allied to the industry. The world-famous Jaako Poyry Consulting firm is based in Helsinki and senior consultant Ilpo Ervasti spoke about the role of recovered paper and future trends.

Mr Ervasti pointed to crucial differences that exist between wood production from the forests and the recovered paper sector. "If there is a recession in the forest industries and pulp is not needed, it is not produced. With recovered paper, the supply continues. You have to keep the collection going and supply is not so price sensitive and so demand is not so sensitive.

Pulp prices
In the long term, Mr Ervasti predicted that the pulp price worldwide will go down. This is due to large volumes of pulp entering the world market from countries such as Brazil. And, recycled paper will face more of a challenge not just from paper produced from such pulp but also because the easy sources of collection of recovered paper have already been tapped. "If you want more then you will have to go to more distant places to collect. It will get harder."
On a technical note, he pointed out that recovered paper grades are normally used as raw material for the end use purpose — for example, used newspapers and magazines are used for newsprint production. Consequently, mills which have access to the best sources of recovered paper are in a good strategic position, he said.

Papermaking in Europe will remain important but the UK will be exporting more of its recovered paper, predicts Mr Ervasti. The picture shows paper production at the Stora Enso mill in Varkaus, Finland.

But, giving a clear warning note to the paper industry, Mr Ervasti observed: "Everyone is planning new mills near where they think it is easy to get material. But some people should think before investing and think where they will get their raw materials."

And, he emphasised the importance of the export market for recovered material and suggested that Europe would remain very important in this market even if the US had the potential to export more. "American paper has more potential for exports to meet the Asian and Chinese demand for recovered paper. The Americans should increase their collection activities but they will have to go, for example, to farmhouses in Arizona. In many cases it is not practical to do this."

How then will the fibre demand of Asia be met? Mr Ervasti pointed immediately to the UK in response to this rhetorical question. "The UK is one of the highest users of recycled paper in production of paper. So with a small lift it can meet increased demand.

UK's role
"The UK's role will be to export paper. It is a big paper consumer but also already has a high utilisation rate and this will make it difficult increase this." Citing the example of the work of WRAP — the Waste and Resources Action Programme, Mr Ervasti suggested the organisation could have a problem in trying to get more recovered paper used within the UK. "It is trying to increase the utilisation rate but whatever you do it will be difficult."

He advocated that the UK should plan "not just for domestic needs but for international needs. Organise your waste in a way that someone pays for it." He pointed to Langebrugge (in Belgium) as an example of an overseas user of raw material from the UK. "They are very important to the UK in terms of consumption. They want to use recovered newspapers and magazines.
One of the most interesting observations made by Mr Ervasti over the UK's position with regard to exports came in an assessment of the position of countries throughout Europe.

Minefield
He suggested that Italy and France were in a "minefield" position, where they had reasonable collection rates but compared to net trade were dependent on the import of material. Germany is in a high collection position and was able to have net exports and so was relatively well-positioned while the UK had similar collection rates to Italy and a little less than France but was in a good position of being a potential source of material for recycling. Should Germany start to be more self-sufficient and utilise more of its own recovered paper at home, then a domino effect could hit Italy and France which would be a good thing for the UK as it would be able to supply more export material.

Mr Ervasti suggested that "this is a very good moment for the UK. Now we know that grades are important — the UK should be able to collect by grades. If you only collect by volume then you may well have to pay for getting rid of waste but if you collect by grade then you will be able to sell it and be paid for your waste."

How many times can paper be recycled?
While the Finnish forest industry advocates high levels of paper recycling it makes the point clearly that paper cannot be recycled forever. This topic was looked at both by Mr Laine of the Forest Industries Federation and Mr Ervasti.
Mr Ervasti said that it was a big question as to how much something should be recycled. He said that there had been many technical tests and these showed that one fibre lasts four of five rounds or recycling. At a collection rate of 50%, in deinking there is an average loss of fibre strength of 20%, so in the next round 40% of fibre is available, and so the volume available depreciates by the same amount in the next round.

"Without the injection of virgin pulp and paper the paper industry would run out of raw material within three months," claimed Mr Ervasti.