Abitibi Asks for Magazines

Michael Sullivan, a general manager with Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., Houston, says residential recycling program managers can increase their haul by taking old magazines (OMG) along with the old newspapers (ONP) they’re already collecting.

Speaking to attendees of a session at the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) Annual Congress, which took place in mid-September in Austin, Texas, Sullivan urged recycling coordinators to add OMG to the mix.

With the ONP recycling rate in the U.S. having zoomed from 30 percent in 1990 to 65 percent in 2001, recyclers and mill buyers are looking for additional furnish. Sullivan says the feedback from most mills is positive toward including OMG. “They like it,” he remarked.

Papermaking and recycling consultant Bill Moore of Moore & Associates, Atlanta, says machinery at many pulping mills has been modified to take in OMG as a feedstock. “Prior to about 1992 there was a different technology (at mills) that couldn’t tolerate magazines,” Moore told Recycling Today. “But [newer] flotation de-inking requires 10 to 30 percent magazines in the furnish.”

According to Moore, many residential collection programs need to be modified to catch up with this technological change. “A lot of the collection programs started before this demand for OMG came about,” he noted.

The potential for OMG collection growth is considerable, said Moore. “ONP might be recovered at 65 percent, but the OMG rate is still less than 30 percent,” he remarked. “In an average pack in a residential program, OMG runs only three to five percent. Given the opportunity and enough education, the typical household could produce a 15 percent OMG rate. That would satisfy most mills’ need for OMG.”

While magazines may be sought after, Sullivan noted that boxboard is still unwanted, at least at newsprint mills. “Our biggest quality issue comes from boxboard in the mix,” Sullivan told the NRC attendees.

Referring to boxboard in the mix and other single-stream collection issues, Sullivan remarked, “Newspaper publishers are pushing us for quality, and the recycled sheets are having trouble keeping up. As an industry, we can no longer be lackadaisical about ONP quality.”