European Paper Recyclers Announce Recovery Goals

The Second Annual Report on fulfilling the commitments outlined in the European Declaration on Paper Recovery, launched two years ago, has been issued by the European Recovered Paper Council.

The main target of the European Declaration is to recycle 56 percent of the available paper and paperboard products by 2005. The figure means that the European paper industry will need to increase its recovery and recycling levels by another 10 million metric tons. Last year, the recycling rate reached 52.1 percent.

According toe the ERPC, while the consumption of paper declined by 4 percent, the utilization of recovered fiber increased by 0.8 percent to 42 million metric tons. The combination of these two trends pushed the recycling level from 49.7 percent in 2000 to 52.1 percent last year. “Because of decreased consumption of paper and board, less paper was available for collection and recycling. In spite of that, more was collected and recycled, which can be considered a great achievement and shows the commitment the industry has towards recycling,” says Ulf Frölander, ERPC chairman.

The association  has undertaken a number of measures to report on progress, and improve transparency. One of these is the Second Annual Report which gives a detailed account of the achievement of the latest European recycling rate figure, but its action program has also included other projects.

The ERPC also announced that it has launched its own website which concentrates on providing up to date information on paper recovery and paper recycling, including current publications, events, and facts & figures related to the issue of recovery and recycling. The website, www.paperrecovery.org will be live on 11 October 2002.