Palm offers paper market reassurance

Palm Recycling, which supplies material for the German-owned Palm Paper mill in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, confirmed that the newsprint industry “has been under immense pressure”.

But, the company emphasised that it wishes “to confirm to all businesses and local authorities involved in the collection of newspaper and magazines that we are fully committed to supporting the UK recovered paper sector, and that we will continue to play such a role today and in the future.”

Richard Waterson, commercial director of Palm Recycling, highlighted that quality of material remains very important to the mill.

He said: “We are of the opinion that it is essential for all to understand that the quality of input material is vital for businesses going forward.  Palm Paper are renowned for the manufacture of world class newsprint and it is essential that world class inputs of recovered paper are used to ensure supplies fully meet the requirements of the mill and EN643.

“It is true that the manufacturing paper industry has seen over the last few years a real fall in the quality of recovered paper received from the collections in the UK. However, it must be clear to all collectors, producers and local authorities that quality is, and will be an important factor in ensuring continuation of movement of materials, as well as the ability to achieve best value on returns.”

Quality

Mr Waterson also commented that Palm Recycling was seeking to work closely with its partners and others who wished to offer the business “quality recovered paper”. And, he pointed out that the export market is also becoming more demand of quality in terms of material sent overseas.

Commenting on this, he said: “It should be further noted that the quality requirements of the export market will continue to become stricter and the quality of recovered paper and other recyclates emanating from the UK will become compared more and more with the quality of its competition.  The ability to send poor quality products is diminishing and as an industry we need to work closer together to ensure recycling in the UK is fully sustainable and not just about hitting targets for today.  This is the basis for a successful and strong paper industry and for the longevity of all involved.”

Palm’s PM7 newsprint machine at King’s Lynn is one of the fastest and most modern in the world, running at a speed of up to 2,000 metres per minute. It produces 400,000 tonnes of newsprint a year from about 500,000 tonnes of input material.

In January this year (2015) the company produced its two millionth tonne of newsprint on PM7 and said it was achieved in 12% less time that the initiall million tonnes produced on this machine due to a “learning curve our papermakers and operators experienced in the taming of the machine”.