Press Release

UK Paper and Board Recovery: 2007 State of Trade

10th March 2008

Collection Cracks the 8.6 Million Tonne Mark

Confederation of Paper Industry (CPI) analysis of UK paper mill raw material usage and H M Revenue and Customs (HM R&C) trade data shows solid progress through 2007 in the recovery of used paper products from the UK waste stream for recycling.

The data suggests that just over 8.7 million tonnes of recovered paper was either used in the UK (46%, 4.05 million tonnes), or exported for reprocessing overseas (54%, 4.66 million tonnes). Taking away the HM R&C import data for waste paper classifications (around 90,000 tonnes), CPI estimates the collection of recovered paper from the UK waste stream to be just over 8.6 million tonnes.

This paper and board recycling performance represents greenhouse gas savings of over 11 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in comparison to other UK disposal options such as landfill and incineration.[1]

Collection Growth Back on Track

The 2007 UK collected tonnage was 7.5% higher than that collected in 2006 (602,000 tonnes), and is a welcome rise after the poor growth levels seen in 2006 (3.4%, 261,000 tonnes). The 2007 performance compares more favourably with the growth levels achieved in 2005 (8.7%, 623,000 tonnes) and in 2004 (12.8%, 808,000 tonnes). When viewed alongside the apparent growth in the collection of paper and board packaging2 from the UK waste stream in 2007 (estimated at near 155,000 tonnes3), the apparent growth of paper and board recovered from non-packaging related UK waste streams would appear to be around 446,000 tonnes. However, HM R&C data suggests that significant volumes of paper packaging waste are being exported for reprocessing overseas outside the Packaging Waste Regulations, probably as a result of the excessive bureaucracy of the system and low PRN/PERN values, and means it is difficult to accurately gauge the collection picture at a grade specific level.