The new recycling line, costing more than 120 million, is being part-funded by a 17 million grant from WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme and an official opening of the plant is expected in 2004. Shotton's target from WRAP is to collect an extra 320,000 tonnes of used newspapers and magazines from UK households by the spring of 2004.
However, WRAP has this week confirmed that under European Union state aid rules “Shotton are allowed to source material from outside the UK”. Such a move would, however, be contrary to the aim of the grant which was intended to help create additional newsprint recycling capacity which will use new tonnage generated from households across the UK rather than abroad.
A WRAP spokeswoman said that WRAP is in “regular, formal and informal contact with Shotton over the progress being made towards sourcing additional recovered paper”. She added: “WRAP are pleased with the progress being made by Shotton so far.”
Shotton, which is part of the Finnish-owned UPM Kymmene paper group, has emphasised that it fully intends to use only UK-sourced material at the plant although this may not happen immediately. Industry sources speculate that material could be imported from France and that the UPM-Kymmene mill at Chapelle in northern France might even switch a line from using recovered paper to using wood instead for paper production.
Option
A spokeswoman for UPM-Kymmene said: “Our procurement plans are going to plan. We are just lucky to have that option to import from another UPM mill. We have a back-up plan in case we need supplies but we are confident that we are going to meet the target.”
She added that the sourcing “is going to plan. Any situation like this when you are starting something brand new needs some flexibility. Nothing is cast in concrete. We have to have that flexibility and our short, medium and long term aim is to source the paper that we need from as close to the mill as possible. We are very fortunate that being part of a big international group does give us some flexibility.”
And, she emphasised that the “whole aim of the Shotton project is to help the UK government in achieving its targets.”
Shotton is actively seeking contracts in the UK and is thought to be offering some at above typical market prices. But, the company is also having to face up to the fact that some council collections are not generating as much tonnage as expected. And, some of its contracts have a target figure which may take several months or years to reach. One aspect of the collections which the company is pleased with is that it is generating a good number of magazines from households, which helps in the papermaking process. The ratio currently is about 60:40 newspapers to magazines.
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