MRF expert reacts to concerns of paper mills

Mr Glover has noted that UK mills could be finding the marketplace affected by the lower value of sterling and other factors. The mills view as published yesterday is available here: ‘Mills attack waste sector over paper contamination’.

‘Scatter-gun’

The full text of Mr Glover’s view is as follows: “I don’t see that these scatter-gun attacks help anyone in the UK industry, which includes local authorities, private firms, MRF’s and fibre buyers – let alone UK mills.

“The main topic appeared to be “corrugated”, which means cardboard to the man in the street.

“Perhaps the very immediate problem for UK mills is that the lower £ has increased the interest of world buyers of corrugated and all fibre/paper produces from the UK and this may have put UK mills at a buying disadvantage in cost terms. Conversely if they are exporting product, UK prices for finished material will be more attractive to foreign buyers.

“There is a very healthy UK, Europe and world market for the high quality paper and other products that Bywaters produce at Bow in East London and I suspect very little goes to UK mills.

“Going back in time UK mills had much more of a monopoly on fibre prices, but we all now have to operate in a world market. The U.K. has very few paper mills left and if Bywaters and our customers relied on them and the prices they have historically offered then UK waste paper recovery for UK mills would be a fraction of what it is now. We are not subsidised by anyone.

“The comments made by the UK paper mills are particularly self-serving and have been going on for some time. Where are these rotten suppliers and why do they buy from them?

“We have sought to support UK mills but behaviour to important intermediaries (including us!) has sometimes been ambivalent. For one company we do handle a single stream and there are still contaminants that we remove at Bow before consigning to the mill. Such arrangements need to be backed by stability and cover the fluctuations in the world market place.”

Councils

Separately to Mr Glover’s view, there has been discussion on Twitter of the mill view about cardboard arisings from MRFs. ‘Meditative Dustman’, for example, has suggested that councils “should act”.

Related links
Bywaters
Confederation of Paper Industries