European Paper Recycling Conference: Limits to Consumption

Recovered fibre continues to be a feedstock of choice for paper manufactures, but four mill buyers of the material largely agree that they see signs of strain in the supply chain.

“At the end of the day, the industry cannot consume more [recovered fibre] than what is available,” summarized Pascal Aguettaz of Canada’s Cascades at the end of his presentation.

Aguettaz also remarked that his company has embraced sustainability and the use of scrap paper with its “Green by Nature” slogan and its operating practices. Even so, he says that deliveries to his mills have included increasing amounts of contamination as recyclers strain to collect and process material from new sources.

“Paper and tissues mills using recovered paper are losing one or two points on their yield on a yearly basis,” he declared.

Sami Aoude of Norway’s Norske Skog remarked that a supply chain consisting of 100 percent recovered fibre is “unsustainable,” as paper in certain applications such as tissues is largely unrecoverable.

Nonetheless, he said that at Norske Skog, “recovered paper is an important part of our energy management and climate change strategies.”

Tony Waring, who sources fibre for United States-based Kimberly Clark at its United Kingdom mills, remarked that “declines in quality and yield have been experienced in recent years,” as measured by the company’s mill buyers and engineers in its incoming scrap paper loads.

In the case of tissue mills, contaminants can include not only the plastic and metals that might be part of a commingled stream, but also brown grades and other non-white papers that are collected.

Ignacio Sanchez, who procures fibre for mills in Spain and France operated by Netherlands-based Smurfit-Kappa, says the firm has been actively using a bale identification system to help it maintain higher quality standards for its purchased fibre.

In the question-and-answer portion of the session, Waring indicated that “consistency” of recovered paper shipments is the biggest reason why mill process engineers prefer working with natural wood sources of fibre.

In the competition for recovered fibre, Aguettaz of Cascades noted that mill buyers in both North America and Europe will continue to face stiff completion from brokers buying on behalf of Asian mills. “Our streets are termed ‘the Chinese forest’,” he remarked. “And when you’re closer to a port, it is even more competitive for material.”

The 2009 European Paper Recycling Conference was held Nov. 16-17 at the Hotel Bloom in Brussels.