The mutating myth that will not go away: 'Using FSC-certified virgin fibre is better for the environment than recycled paper'.
Substitute for FSC-certified, any one of the following : 'virgin fibre from sustainable sources; chemically pulped virgin fibre; virgin fibre from Scandinavia, where mills are next to the forest.
Not one of these statements has a basis in creditable research.
WRAP has comissioned the most exhaustive life cycle analysis ever undertaken, to inform this debate.
View the summary here.
Or consider the following conclusions:
Energy: The report identified an average of 50% less energy consumption when recycling instead of incinerating paper and cardboard over the entire life-cycle. In other words, on average virgin fibre production followed by incineration with energy recovery consumed twice as much energy as recycling.
Carbon: As one of the most commonly raised impact categories, and of increasing importance, the report identified a clear carbon saving for recycled paper versus virgin paper.
Why use recycled paper?
There are three main reasons to use recycled fibre:
Lower resource use: Paper manufacture
is very resource-intensive. It simply makes no sense to use paper
only once, when it can be so easily re-used.
Less landfill: Recycling reduces the amount of waste paper going to landfill. It is predicted that we will run out of landfill sites in the UK during the next decade. Landfills will be replaced by incinerators, whose toxic fall-out has been proven to be harmful to human health. Also, as it biodegrades in landfill (anaerobic conditions), paper produces methane, which is 23 times more powerful than CO2.
No harm to forests: Only when
using 100 percent recycled paper can you can be absolutely sure that
your product has not had a detrimental effect on any forest.
Fact: One tonne of recycled paper saves approximately six mature trees and 3.3 cubic yards of rapidly diminishing landfill space (Source: Friends of the Earth).
Processing recovered paper
Superficially, it’s quite straightforward: waste paper and board is collected, sorted and then sold for re-use. Next, the fibre is pulped, screened (to remove foreign particles, contaminants, and fibres not fit for re-use) and then de-inked. It may or may not then be re-bleached.
The extent to which each of these processes is undertaken depends on the quality of the final product. Fibre for reuse in higher quality materials is chosen accordingly: higher quality waste will be used in higher quality new materials; lower grade waste will go into newsprint or packaging. Around 70% of the original volume of recovered paper will be used in a new material.
In summary:
Waste paper and board is collected and sorted by specialists at central operations.
The sorted waste is sold to paper mills for processing and re-use.
The waste is pulped, screened and then either de-inked or dispersed.
De-inking is done using sodium hydroxide, the main ingredient in soap and the same chemical which is used for washing vegetables. The residual sludge from the de-inking process is used as fertiliser or fuel.
Dispersal spreads the ink rather than removing it.
According to end use, the pulp may be bleached.
The main chemical for bleaching recycled fibre is hydrogen peroxide, the same chemical which is used to bleach virgin fibre.
The reprocessing of recycled fibre often has the aim of making it look like virgin fibre - i.e, very white; but the paper manufacturers are simply responding to market demand. Given the environmentally benign nature of the reprocessing, if this is what it takes to persuade people to use recycled fibre then it’s a relatively small environmental price to pay. The aims of lower resource use, less landfill and no harm to forests are still achieved.
There are different definitions of the term “recycled” within the industry, so it is important to check the fibre detail of a material. It is quite normal, for example, for a paper to be called ‘recycled’ when only a small percentage of the fibre is actually recycled.
Post-consumer waste is when the product has reached the end consumer, and is then recycled.
Pre-consumer waste (sometimes known as post-industrial waste) describes printers’ waste, such as off-cuts and unused copies which may have been over-ordered.
