Financial crises hit everyone in the economy, but the recycling rate of paper in Europe jumped up, not down, due to the economy’s slowdown in the second half of 2008. As the recycling rate is the ratio between the recycling and consumption of paper, the sudden fall in consumption – whereas the recycling continued a steady growth – resulted in a record high 66.6 percent recycling rate in 2008, says European Recovered Paper Council in its Monitoring Report 2008.

The total amount of paper collected and sent to be recycled in paper mills came to 60.3 million tonnes, an increase of 8.2 million tonnes (or +15.8 percent) since 2004, the base year for the target the industry has set itself for increasing recycling in Europe.

Some 10.4 million tonnes (or 17.2 percent) of the total 60.3 million tonnes were exported for recycling in third countries outside the commitment region of EU-27 plus Norway and Switzerland.

In addition to the quantitative progress, the Monitoring report shows that much was done in the qualitative work for establishing an eco-design towards improved recyclability and in the area of waste prevention. A particularly successful story was the substitution of a phthalate, DiBP, in adhesives that caused worries about food safety. In a voluntary action the relevant parts of the value chain agreed to and managed to find safe and cost effective substitutes.

The full Monitoring Report 2008 can be downloaded under cepi.org.

Quelle: European Recovered Paper Council

Zurück