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Paper Manufacturers

2005-02-28
The demand for recycled paper has increased steadily in recent years with immense improvements in both the quality and the range available. New products are constantly coming onto the market and cost is becoming comparable, if not already so, with paper made from primary sources of material. Using recycled paper products helps demonstrate one's commitment to environmental issues and good ethics.

Consumer confusion is common between recycled paper and 'environmentally-friendly' paper. Decisions regarding the environmental qualities of papers are difficult to make due to a lack of statutory guidance as to what constitutes a 'recycled' paper. Criticisms levelled at paper or equipment suppliers include the lack of clear information on the appropriateness of recycled papers and the threat of increased service costs or redundant warranties on office equipment if recycled paper is used. The situation is changing but there is a clear need for independent consumer guidance to assist specifiers and buyers.

There are varying definitions of genuine recycled paper. The National Recycling Forum supported, and encouraged its members to use, the National Association of Paper Merchants (NAPM), Blue Angel or HMSO (The Stationery Office) accreditation systems as guidelines when specifying recycled paper. General thinking is to encourage the highest post-consumer recycled content whenever possible, providing that 'fitness for purpose' and performance criteria are taken into consideration.

The NAPM system states that recycled paper must have at least 75% waste paper, excluding any mill produced waste. Many popular so-called 'recycled' papers are excluded from this definition, due to the high proportion of pre-consumer waste used in their manufacture. Post-consumer material means a material or finished product that has served its intended use and been discarded for disposal or recovery, having completed its life as a consumer item. Post-consumer material is part of a broader category of recovered material. Other terms often used by the paper industry and in specification include:

Wood free - this term can be confusing because the paper is not free of wood pulp or made of materials other than wood. The wood pulp for this paper is produced by a chemical process and contains no lignin. Mechanical pulp, which does contain lignin, is referred to as wood-containing pulp.

Mill broke occurs during the papermaking process e.g. trimmings and faulty paper which goes straight back into the pulping process. Since it has never been used, it does not count as recycled fibre.

Pre-consumer waste includes any fibre that occurs as an industrial by-product such as printers' trim. It has an economic value, is easily collected but offers fewer environmental benefits compared with recycling post-consume waste paper.