Paper Industry Against Commission Decision To Burn Paper

The European Commission has issued a mandate on solid recovered fuels that, according to the Confederation of European Paper Industries, contradicts its other Community policies which actively and strongly encourage paper recycling. According to CEPI, the problem lies in the ongoing vagueness of the definition of Waste.

The mandate for the European Committee for Standardisation to work out a set of standards on solid recovered fuels was approved by the European Commission Aug. 26.

The purpose, it seems, of having this standard is to encourage the use of waste as fuel, which in itself forms part of the overall promotion of renewable energy sources (RES) in order to combat climate change and increase energy self-sufficiency. While the European pulp and paper industry is very much in favour of this development, it has serious problems with what is constituted as ‘waste for fuel’. The broad definition of waste currently used within the Community includes recovered paper which is meant to be recycled, but with the above mandate will fall into the category of solid recovered fuels. In other words, recovered paper will encouraged to be burnt, rather than recycled.

The paper industry finds this unacceptable, especially in light of the strong encouragement the Community has been giving on the promotion of paper recycling. Paper recycling in European has experienced a tremendous boost, especially since the launch of the European Declaration on Paper Recovery in November 2000, where the industry voluntarily committed itself to achieving a European recycling rate of 56 percent by 2005.

In letters sent by Michael Gröller, CEPI’s Chairman, to Commissioner de Palacio, Commissioner Liikanen and Commissioner Wallström, the Industry has requested the exclusion of recovered paper and board collected separately and suitable for recycling, as defined in an other European standard, the recently adopted EN 643 standard, European List of Standard Grades of Recovered Paper and Board. The industry fundamentally believes that this standard set to encourage recovered paper is in conflict with the Community policy of considering recovered paper as a solid recovered fuel.