Companies who run materials recycling facilities (MRFs) which sort comingled materials collected from the kerbside are particularly keen to ensure their views are heard, and understood, by the paper industry.
The sharpest views on both sides see the waste management sector accusing the paper industry of trying to reduce its own costs by passing the buck on sorting to local authorities and waste management contractors. The paper industry says that it is receiving contaminated material from consumers who fail to rinse cans and sometimes put putrescible material in with the recyclables. And, the industry argues that its customers may not buy its products if they could have been in contact with food before being recycled.
Full details of the paper industry's proposals are contained in a draft paper called “Implications for future paper recovery schemes”. This gives a number of reasons for the crackdown on the quality of paper produced at the kerbside which is needed because of “higher quality requirements” for the industry's raw materials. These include “strength and surface criteria in high speed printing for newspapers, magazines and other multi-coloured materials” and “the defining in law acceptable materials for making food packaging products”.
Trends
The draft states: “To meet these trends and to give customers confidence about raw material quality, the European Paper Industry has endorsed the proposal by the European Commission for a European Standard to identify grades of recovered paper. Draft Standard EN643 has been accepted by EU member states and is in the final stages of conversion to national standards. The British Standard was published on 25 February. Although use of the standard is voluntary, it may be used in contract between supplier and customer. As a standard, it has no legal status although it may be quoted in law as defining a method of compliance. In this respect the European Commission is proposing to use the standard as the basis for defining acceptable materials for use in manufacturing food packaging products.”
The documents notes that the standard includes the statement: “Recovered paper from refuse sorting stations is not suitable for use in the paper industry“, which, says the document, “has important implications for some UK collection arrangements.”
The draft proposals say that the kerbside collection of paper mixed with other dry recyclables and then sorted at a clean MRF is an “unacceptable practice” which has to be phased out. Some bring (bank) schemes will also be hit in two instances – newspapers and magazines from the banks will not be accepted for recycling into newspapers and bank paper will not be accepted for a range of other products as well.
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