By Perry J. Greenbaum, Freelance Writer
BRUSSELS,
June 30, 2009
(Viewpoint) -
Paper mills can achieve better yields only when the quality of recovered paper going into the mix is high-grade. For many mills in North America and Europe that poses a serious challenge. The introduction by municipalities in the last few years to single-stream collection has generated mixed results. It will take a united effort of recyclers, mills and researchers working together to make recycling what everyone hopes it can be.
Recovery rates of secondary fiber have steadily gone up the last few years. To their credit, paper companies have incorporated increasingly higher levels of deinked pulp (DIP) into the manufacture of many paper products. For example, the production of standard newsprint in North America and Europe typically uses 100% DIP as a source of fiber.
No doubt, that seems like particularly good news at a time when the global economy continues to undergo the pains of severe slowdowns and loss of business. The news reports are dreadful, with daily reports of mill closures, firms forced into bankruptcy and job losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Many analysts also point out that environmental considerations and everything with a green stamp of approval will gain an economic advantage in what is aptly called the Green Movement. Recycling is one of the fundamental tenets of the Green Movement, and paper companies have understood this and taken up the challenge.
According to RISI's recent economic forecast, recovered paper consumption in North America will climb just 0.1% per year between 2008 and 2012. Average growth for the forecast period just keeps pace with the forecast for paper and paperboard production in 2008-2012, as the aggregate recovered paper utilization rate cycles around 36% over the next five years. Because of limited gains in use, consumption of recovered paper in North America will account for 15% of worldwide demand in 2012, down from 17% in 2007.
Recycling rates
There is a good business case to use secondary fiber or recovered paper. It is estimated that using recycled material to make paper products saves between 40% and 60% of the energy that it takes to create paper products from raw material. Equally important, recycling of one ton of paper material will save about 3 m2 of landfill space.
Yet, things are not always as they appear. Although everyone agrees that recycling is good for the planet, and neatly fits into the Green Movement agenda of eco-anything, recycling's success might just confirm the law of unintended consequences. Here's why. In many municipalities in the industrialized world, recovery rates are well over 50%. Despite the high level of citizens in industrialized nations participating in curbside-collection programs (such as blue or green boxes), mills might face a real shortage of good-quality fiber.
Much of it has to do with the volatile expansion that has taken place in China during the last decade. China's double-digit economic expansion the last few years has affected both the cost and quality of secondary fiber, causing both to fluctuate wildly. The Asian nation's insatiable appetite for fiber has left North American and European mills scrambling to find good-quality secondary fiber.
Many industry experts say that as much as 10% of the secondary fiber collected at municipal curbside recycling programs is not usable at the mill level. "So, if you buy a ton of paper, 10% of it cannot be used," says David Jones, industry specialist with Buckman Laboratories of Canada Limited in Vaudreuil-Dorion, QC. "That has to have an effect on the final cost."
The problem of consistency stems from the high levels of prohibitives or trash in the recovered paper, Jones points out. "That means there is a lot of plastic, glass and cardboard mixed in with the paper. As for the cardboard, you can't really sort it out."
There are, however, some things that can be done at the mill level. A drum pulper can undoubtedly sort out the trash in the production of newsprint. "It removes the glass, plastic and trash much easier than a batch pulper," Jones says. "But much of the work has to be done in improved sorting at the recycling plant and in the collection of what is placed in the recycling boxes.
A mill perspective
Patrice Clerc sees firsthand the problems of a single-stream collection system. Supply and services manager for Cascades Recovery's recycling center in Montreal, QC, Clerc has much to say about the single stream's inherent weaknesses. "It's a way for municipalities to increase their recycling numbers, since it encourages and makes it easier for residents to recycle," Clerc says. "But all the materials are in one bin-not separated."
Previously, municipalities were paying upwards of C$50 a tonne to separate the curbside materials into paper, plastics and metals. But things changed when Asian markets in general and China in particular came calling during the booming times.
"Recyclers found it easier to put everything in one bale and sell it to China and other Asian markets," Clerc says. "There were newspapers inside, but lots of contaminants, up to 40% of plastics and metals."
Since China was paying up to C$50 a tonne for a bale of recycled content, recyclers systematically lowered their collection fees to municipalities in a race to the bottom. "The recyclers charged the municipalities zero for collection of recycled material," Clerc says. "They baled it and exported it overseas, making money in that way."
But the bottom fell out of the secondary fiber market in November 2008, when the demand plummeted 45%. In short, China stopped buying. Thus, many recycling centers had bales of recycled material, unsorted, rotting away, Clerc says. "We cannot use these bales, because they remain unsorted. And no one wants to sort the bales, because it's a cost that the recycling centers cannot afford."
To make matters worse, Clerc points out that "99% of the recycling centers in Quebec lack the sorting equipment and technology to deliver high-quality secondary fiber to mills." They use everything from mechanical sorters to optical to X-ray technology.
But that is insufficient to do the job right. As Clerc points out, there are only two recycling centers in North America that have sufficient technology to do the job right. "We need to invest four or five million dollars on such equipment," he says. "It's hard to convince companies to invest such amounts now."
Simply put, there is a cost to recycling that someone has to bear, whether that's the municipality, recycling center or resident. It's no use collecting material, and leaving it unsorted to rot away in storage. It does not serve the purpose of mills, and while it might give comfort to people to think that their municipality recycles a high percentage of material, it might be far from useful information, if the paper does not eventually end up in a mill's furnish. "Recycling is a cost," Clerc says.
European mills face similar challenges. "There is no real technical challenge to using an increasing percentage of secondary fiber in the mix," says Jukka Heimonen, general manager (technology) for stock preparation and recycled fiber for Metso Paper in Valkeakoski, Finland. "But when there is a high variation in the incoming raw material, there will be a resulting variation in the accepts and even in the paper quality. One of the chief concerns in the last year has been the availability of good-quality secondary fiber."
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There has been a continued push to use higher percentages of secondary fiber in various paper grades, cost and environmental considerations generally being the chief driving factors. One of the most-difficult challenges had been to manufacture magazine-grade paper such as lightweight coated (LWC) containing a high content of recycled fiber or secondary fiber. The problem has always been poor end quality.
The solution had eluded many fine paper companies until Leipa Georg Lienfelder, with mills in Schrobenhausen and Schwedt, Germany, faced this huge technological challenge together with Voith and succeeded when it installed its PM 4 in Schwedt(PPI, May 2004).
The Leipa mill in Schwedt sources most of the 800,000 tonnes/yr of recovered paper from curbside collection in the greater Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania areas of Germany. “We worked very well together in a partnership,” says Bernd Vogel, manager, application graphic papers for Voith Paper Fiber Systems in Germany, referring to the 27-month implementation phase. “This is the only plant in the world that is producing LWC paper from 100% secondary fiber.”
The mill has received FSC certification and can produce 300,000 tonnes/yr of LWC paper on PM 4. It also uses recycled furnish in the mill’s other paper machines, which can produce LWC and recycled linerboard. |
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Recycling will increase
Such assertions, if indeed correct, call into question the quality of the recycled material sold into the marketplace at inflated prices the last few years. The pace has slowed, in keeping with tougher economic times. The current economic downturn has resulted in mill closures and the closure of deinking plants across North America.
Even so, recycling plants are running at full speed. The use of recycled fiber use is increasing and will rise further, says Gilles Dorris, program manager (papermaking) at FPInnovations-Paprican in Pointe Claire, QC. "There is more recycling content, because it's now more economical than using wood chips," Dorris says. "Recycling is also an important part of the movement toward green practices."
"The quality of the raw material has decreased in the last few years with the single-stream approach," he says. Even so, Dorris points out that such problems are somewhat mitigated by the fact that the raw material costs have decreased. "Two years ago, the cost of recovered paper was an issue for mills, because the cost of recovered paper was high, mainly driven by the great demand in China," Dorris says. Things, however, change quickly. "A year ago, some mills closed their recycling plants. And then suddenly, it's the exact opposite. That means mills are now in a good position to find recovered paper."
Recycling itself is not the problem. "There are all kinds of initiatives that the Canadian industry is taking, steps to become more green as part of the worldwide Green Movement," Dorris says. "In the future, there will be more recycled fiber in tissue paper, writing paper and packaging paper and paperboards," he says.
In many ways, the credibility of the Green Movement hinges on the ability of mills to receive high-grade recovered paper. Simply put, it comes down to better sorting of the recyclables. It's not a time to cast accusations, but rather look for viable solutions. "We need to invest in this sorting technology and in methods to improve the removal of contaminants and contraries from recycled content," Dorris says. "It's easy to point a finger in blame. But we have to work together, the sorters, the mills and the researchers, to arrive at a solution."
Perry J. Greenbaum, a Montreal-based freelance writer, has been covering the forest products sector since 1996. He can be reached at pjgreenbaum@gmail.com
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