When Martin van Tuyl, managing director for Northern Europe for SITA Paper Recycling and Trading, looks ahead at the recovered fibre market, he sees some imbalances.
Van Tuyl, who works from a Netherlands-based SITA office, told delegates at a session at the 2009 European Paper Recycling Conference that he foresees the potential for imbalances in supply and demand and in the cost to recover and sell scrap paper.
Pointing to the perceived lower quality of additional tons already being extracted from the recovered paper stream, van Tuyl predicted an “increasing imbalance between quality supply and demand.”
According to van Tuyl, the high production papermaking machinery being used at mills does not necessarily coincide well with the already-high recovery rates in much of Europe. Any additional tons being pulled from European markets may not be all that desirable at mills that require highly pure grades of scrap paper.
The other imbalance van Tuyl sees is between the increasing costs to collect recovered fibre and the unwillingness of mills to pay more than what they are already paying for material.
Fuel prices and labor costs are adding to the cost of collecting fibre to an extent that mills may soon decide that virgin materials offer a better economic proposition.
Van Tuyl said he is in favor or stricter fibre grade definitions within the EN 643 document to include maximum out-throw percentages. He sees it as one of several steps that can “improve cooperation in the recovered paper value chain to accelerate necessary innovations on collection, recovery and utilization.”
Joining van Tuyl as a speaker at the Tuesday, Nov. 17 conference session was Joris de Caluwe, Managing Director of Netherlands-based Ciparo bv.
De Caluwe remarked that those who think mill buyers in China and other parts of Asia will accept sub-standard quality shipments are mistaken. China, as the most prominent example, has several agencies devoted to ensuring shipments are inspected and contain minimal contaminants, with that nation’s GB 16487.4-2005 regulation placing strict (0.01%) limits on most common forms of contamination within fibre shipments.
“Exporting scrap paper is not an easy job anymore,” stated de Caluwe. “Not a lot of people should do it—they should leave it to the experts.”
Also speaking at the session was Aby de Liever of SCA Recycling Benelux. De Liever offered on overview of the quality specifications used by SCA’s family of mills, as well as a summary off how recyclers are doing meeting those standards.
According to de Liever, only about 1 percent of shipments arriving at SCA mills are rejected outright, another 1 percent are downgraded at the scale and a further 2.5 percent receive a moisture content deduction before they are accepted.
The 2009 European Paper Recycling Conference was held Nov. 16-17 at the Hotel Bloom in Brussels.