Speaking to the main session of the LARAC – Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee – conference in Nottingham, Tom Campbell-White, UK commercial director at DS Smith Recycling, told the audience that the company is “hungry for paper – we are buying material from local authorities, putting it through our paper mill and turning it back into paper”.
Mr Campbell-White then explained the company’s new interest in local authorities. He said: “The reason we are interested in getting back into the local authority sector is because we’ve seen a change in trends, a change in packaging consumption.”
Cheaper
Mr Campbell-White reasoned that the changes in paper content arising within the household waste stream were due in part to the growth of social media, such as Facebook, and the decline in newspaper readership as well as a growth in packaging from home shopping.
He said: “Over the last five, six, seven years, people have stopped buying so many newspapers… my bin is much more full now of brown material. It’s a cheaper furnish and it’s a cheaper grade for us to purchase and we are hungry to bring that into our fibre pool.”
(DS Smith can use the mixed paper, with cardboard in it, from local authorities as part of the mix for making cardboard paper at its mill in Kemsley, Kent – mixed paper is a cheaper paper grade to buy than used cardboard.)
‘Pain’
Mr Campbell-White also turned to the topic of source separation and commingling at MRFs and criticised some MRF operators for turning towards production of RDF, with paper consequently lost from recycling. He said: “Within the local authority sector, one of the things that pains me is visiting a MRF that is looking to produce a stream for RDF or energy from waste. That pains me.”
He highlighted the advantages of source segregation recycling to delegates. Living in Somerset, Mr Campbell-White showed them pictures of his own keen recycling at home where, with the help of his family, he had managed to achieve very low rates of residual waste using a source-separated recycling service run by Kier for the Somerset Waste Partnership.
On DS Smith’s view of source separation, he said: “We prefer source segregation but we know there is a place for the MRF. Our preference is for source segregation but we are working with MRFs, otherwise we are not going to get enough mixed material for our mills.”
Transparency
And, he urged for local authorities to be transparent about the recycling process so that residents can follow the materials through the supply chain to the company’s mill. However, he also conceded that “I am involved in the export business. We shouldn’t shy away from the fact that material is going to Europe and the Far East as that is from where a lot of goods are produced”.
Mr Campbell-White also reminded delegates of the need for quality in recycling saying that current policy on this should be enforced: “The message is that everybody is responsible for high quality recycling.”
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