PAPER RECYCLING CONFERENCE: PSI Gets Spec-ific

The Paper Stock Industries (PSI) Chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), Washington, is drafting a glossary of terms that will soon accompany its “Guidelines for Paper Stock” circular.

Meeting in conjunction with the Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show, Chicago, PSI Chapter members were able to look over a glossary of more than 45 terms proposed and defined by the Chapter’s Standards & Practices Committee to accompany the circular, which defines paper stock grades for packers, traders and mill buyers.

According to committee chairman Ralph Simon, SP Newsprint, Atlanta, the definitions will help “educate and explain terms used to define grade descriptions” in the domestic transactions section of the PSI circular.

Concerning the grade descriptions themselves, Simon’s committee and another committee headed by Nini Krever, Traders International Corp., Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., are considering or have already approved changes that include using more PSI-approved abbreviations; defining moisture percentages for domestic grades, establishing a 10 percent threshold; adding “fiber cores” as a specialty grade; and considering the need for additional mixed paper grades. Additionally, Leonard Zeid of Federal International Inc., St. Louis, is heading a sub-committee attempting to establish an acceptable ink coverage percentage for the manifold white ledger grade.

In other PSI business, Ralph Simon and Ben Harvey of E.L. Harvey & Sons, Westborough, Mass., noted that a joint PSI-American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) committee is “looking at mutual concerns” of the two organizations, including ways to reach the AF&PA’s 55 percent scrap paper recovery goal.

PSI membership committee chair George Chen, G&T Trading International Corp., Clifton, N.J., reported on the Sunday the conference began that PSI membership stood at 111, but several new members were recruited during the three-day conference.

The PSI also announced several scholarship winners at the Paper Recycling Conference. Scholarship winners, who can work for PSI member companies or be members of an employee’s family, receive $1,000 toward their collegiate costs.