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Am Bratach No. 194
Waste paper could end up in China should collection methods change Our waste paper is currently recycled into newspapers but if Highland Council set up a kerbside collection of paper for recycling, it could end up being shipped to China, writes MANDY HAGGITH. Until last week the waste paper put in recycling bins in North West Sutherland went to Scotland’s biggest paper recycling firm, Stirling Fibre, based in Croy, near Kilsyth, for sorting. Now it has been deemed to be good enough quality to go directly to the Shotton paper mill at *Flintshire, North Wales. Good quality means that those of us who put waste paper in the bins stick by the rules and deposit only newspapers, magazines and junk mail. These are the types of paper needed by Shotton, which recycles them into newsprint, the paper used for printing newspapers. Shotton belongs to UPM Kymmene, the Finnish multinational forestry and paper firm that owns Scotland’s only pulp mill, at Irvine, and parent of Tilhill Forestry, which manages many crofter forestry schemes. Under the new arrangement with Stirling Fibre, newspapers put into bins in our area will be taken to Invergordon, where Highland Council gathers recyclable material from around the region. They will then be trucked to Shotton, pulped and made into newsprint. “Yesterday you put your Sunday paper in the recycling bin”, said Forbes Conner, head of Stirling Fibre. “Today twenty-five tonnes will be collected from around the Highlands. Tomorrow it could be in a pulper and by Friday it could be a newspaper again”. This happy arrangement is dependent on the quality of what is in our bins remaining high. The first threat to quality is people putting unsuitable paper into the bin, in particular, cardboard, food packaging, fax paper, sticky labels and envelopes (though apparently everything from a zimmer frame and a dead cat to hundreds of pounds of cash have been found in there). Labels and envelopes are problematic because the glue forms lumps called stickies, the bane of a paper-maker’s life, causing sheets to be uneven or even gumming up machines. Cardboard and packaging are not suitable for making newsprint. The biggest threat to waste paper quality comes when local authorities decide to make recycling easy for people by providing them with kerbside collection of recyclable materials (cans, plastics and paper) all mixed together. “When paper is not segregated from other recyclable material, some of it is bound to go into landfill”, Mr Conner said. “Segregation is key. It’s not rocket science. Separating metal and plastic is feasible, but put paper in the mix [and] it’s a nightmare”. When other kinds of paper are combined with newspapers and magazines the result is mixed paper, which no-one wants to handle. The only market that is likely to be found for it is in China. Altogether almost half of the 8.2 million tonnes of waste paper collected in the UK each year is send abroad to be recycled, mostly to China, which has a massive appetite for waste paper and its booming economy keeps prices high. “We could actually get more money if we exported all the paper to China”, said Mr Conner, “but we think our carbon footprint is a big issue and we want to encourage the local market”. While the government focuses on keeping rubbish out of land fill sites, the carbon emissions from shipping have simply not been taken into the equation. “We’d rather keep it in the UK and support sustainable businesses here”, added Mr Conner. Unfortunately, local authorities have been set ambitious targets for keeping waste out of landfill with punitive fines if these are not reached. This has led to scaremongering that other council services will need to be cut if recycling levels are not high enough. Mr Conner’s recommendation to councils wanting to introduce kerbside recycling is, “Educate the public to separate paper, plastic, cans and bottles. It costs a bit more to collect but it will generate more revenue in the end.” *This corrects the print version |