UK newspaper recycled content target achieved for 2003

The 68.6% figure means that the UK easily meets a voluntary target agreed with the government of 65% recycled content for 2003.

A statement from PaperChain, which is linked to the Confederation of Paper Industries, said:

• The gross amount of waste paper used in UK newspapers as a percentage of total newsprint consumed was 68.6%
• The amount of waste paper consumed by UK newsprint producers as a proportion of their production was 109.7%

The 68.6% recycled content level is up from 65.1% in 2002 and 63.5% in 2001. However, the percentage figure masks the fact that the actual volume of recovered newsprint manufactured in the UK fell for the second year running to 1,038,109 tonnes. In contrast, imports of newsprint at 1.66 million tonnes were up compared to 2002 levels and this material also has some recovered content.

Shotton
This year the tonnage of newsprint manufactured in the UK is expected to rise and displace some of the newsprint coming into the UK as imports. One factor will be an increase in capacity at UPM-Kymmene's Shotton Newsprint plant which has converted to only using recovered newspapers and magazines.

The newspaper publishers and British newsprint manufacturers are now facing another review of targets for recycled content. How tough the new targets are will be influenced by the thoughts of WRAP, the Waste and Resources Programme, which supported the Shotton plant, as well as a number of factors already agreed.

These include:

• The availability of additional reprocessing capacity
• The growth in consumption of newsprint
• The quality of the recycled newsprint available and, in particular, whether this hindered the product process significantly and damaged the product.
• Any uncompetitive pricing of recycled newsprint by newsprint suppliers.

The third point on quality of newspaper is thought to link both potential contamination of material collected from the kerbside. And, different inking process used by the newspaper sector are also an issue.

Details of how the review will be conducted are expected to be revealed by government soon.