The European Recovered Paper Council (ERPC) has described as “impressive” the 70.4% paper recycling rate achieved for Europe for the calendar year 2011.
In its annual Monitoring Report – the first annual report of the third five-year period of the European Declaration on Paper Recycling – ERPC shows that the total amount of paper collected and recycled in the paper sector remained stable at 58 million tonnes, the same as in the previous year, but with an increase of 18 million tonnes since 1998, the base year for the first voluntary commitment the paper value chain set itself for increasing recycling in Europe.
The Monitoring Report states: “New heights can be reported with the number of European countries exceeding a 70% recycling rate going up to 13 and the number of cycles a paper fibre goes through in the loop reaching, on average, 3.4 (compared to the global average of 2.4, based on a calculation method developed in France).”
Describing the paper recycling industry as one “made in Europe, unlike any other”, ERPC says: “Where the paper industry was a pioneer in recycling – implementing a recycling society in Europe decades before the term was coined – it is now taking the challenge of using even more carefully not only fibres but all the materials we have in our hands.
“Even rejects from paper recycling can still become a valuable resource.”
According to ERPC figures (CEPI/RISI 2012), the 70.4% recycling rate makes Europe the paper recycling "Champion of the world", with only North America also exceeding the global average of about 60%.
ERPC states that "many countries" have already reached the theoretical maximum collection rate threshold of 81%. About 19% of total paper and board consumption is said to be non-collectable or non-recyclable, for reasons such as use in libraries, archives, sanitary paper and so on.
“The more one approaches this threshold, the less benefit can be made from it (long transportation, no economies of scale, etc),” ERPC says.
The European Recovered Paper Council (ERPC) was set up after the successful launch of the first ‘European Declaration on Paper Recovery’ as an industry own-initiative in November 2000, with the aim of monitoring the progress made towards meeting the targets set out in the European Declaration.
