Recycling recovered paper

In 1993, nearly 36 million tons of paper were recovered in the United States, twice as much as in 1980 (54). Eor the first time, more paper was recovered in the United States than landfilled. As a result, 11 million fewer tons of paper were landfilled in the United States in 1993 than in 1987. This saved more than 69 X 10 m (90 x 10 yd ) of landfill space. In 1995, recovered paper accounted for 31.5% of the fiber used to manufacture 84.1 million metric tons of paper products (54). Annual capital spending for paper recycling projects from 1995 to the year 2000 is estimated to average 2 biUion (55). The American Eorest Paper Association (AE PA) estimates U.S. consumption of recovered paper will increase 4.9% per year through the year 2000, nearly twice the total paper industry capacity growth rate (56). Consumption of recovered paper in U.S. mills in 1997 is estimated at 35.6 million tons (57). 

Canadian consumption of recovered paper is about 4 million t/yr, much of it imported from the United States. Paper recycling continues to grow worldwide, particularly in Europe and the Pacific Rim. Worldwide use of recycled paper is expected to increase from nearly 75 million tons in 1988 to 130 million tons in 2001 (58). 

A major movement within the pulp and paper industry has been an increased focus on the use of recovered paper. Nearly 50% of paper is now recovered and used either as recycled paper or as products such as home insulation. Furthermore, recovered paper contributes to U.S. exports roughly ten million tons of recovered paper were exported in 2000.1... 

AF PA, 2000 Recovered Paper Statistical Highlights, American Forest and Paper Association, Washington, 2000. Available at http //www.afandpa.org/recycling/Rec introduction.html. 

Keywords Corrugated board, Folding boxboard, Food packaging, Mineral oil, Recovered paper, Recycling... 

Kersten A, Putz H-J, Schabel S (2010) Volatile organic compounds in printed papers and measures for removal in recovered paper processing. In 9. Research Forum on Recycling, Norfolk... 

In the CoE guideline it is stated that some additional requirements are needed to ensure the safety of food contact materials and articles made of recycled fibre, due to the presence of printing inks, adhesives and other substances in the starting material. Aspects that should be considered include the source of recovered paper and board, the processing technologies applied to remove contaminants and the intended use of the product. 

Courtesy of Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) Inc., Debris Roll Screen, (DRS), cited in Resource Recyclings, p. 15 (Recovered Paper Supplement) (April 1998). 

Typically, recycled paper sludge is made up of approximately 50% cellulose, 10 % hemicellulose and 40 % other materials, and has a moisture content of about 60%. For example, with a dry ton of recovered paper for repulping, there is about 0.15 to 0.2 ton of dry short fibers generated. The wet weight of RPS will be up to 0.5 ton including water, short fiber and other solids known as fillers. Because of its high fiber content, RPS is the type of material that can be effectively utilized and converted into ethanol. The ideal method of producing ethanol from RPS is to use the simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) process. 

In the final stage, the wetted mixture is passed through a second air-classifier where the lighter plastic leaves from the top and the denser wet paper from the bottom. The recovered paper could be fed to pulp mills for further recycling. 

The paper product consumption is the core of the chain. After utilization of a paper product by the consumer the paper product becomes wastepaper or postconsumer paper which is a quaternary fjtoresoMrce.Wastepapers from newsprint, books, and packaging materials can be collected and recycled. However, some of the paper products cannot be recovered for recycling. Hygienic papers such as toilet papers are disposed in toilets or papers for technical applications are long-term bonded in a technical product. Around 20% of wastepaper is not available for recycling regarding Ref. 67. 

About half of the paper is freshly produced from wood by chemical or mechanical pulping. The rest is derived from recovered paper, which is recycled into the pulping process. 

There are approximately a million of pickers in Brazil, placing the country among the ten countries that recycle more paper in the world, which means more than 3,3 tonsof recovered paper. 

In the past chemical pulp was the most important raw material for paper production, but now this has been replaced by recovered paper. 158 million tons of this raw material were used globally in 2002. This volume exceeds the total volume of woodpulp, i.e. chemical pulp (117 million tons) and mechanical pulp (36 million tons) [1]. These figures show that recycled fibers play a very important role today in the global paper industry as a substitute for virgin fiber pulps. 

Recovery or collection rate, in percent, is the amount of collected recovered paper for material recycling, in tons, divided by paper consumption, in tons, on an annual basis, multiplied by 100. 

Fig. 2.7 Development of recycling rate and recovered paper utilization in the CEPI countries (1991-2002) [6].

In the production and processing of chemical, semichemical and mechanical pulps and recovered paper, various inorganic and organic substances are accumulated in dissolved or colloidal dissolved form. Other water-soluble substances enter with the fresh water, fillers, recycled uncoated and coated paper broke and also by chemical additives. As the process water circuits are increasingly closed, the concentration of these water-soluble and colloidal substances and finely dispersed particles increases considerably and an additional contaminant load is thus imposed on the waste water. These substances interfere with the production process by increasing build-ups and deposits, they reduce the efficiency of the chemical additives, and impair the quality of the produced paper. Therefore these substances are also classed as detrimental substances (Fig. 3.18). 

The target of fiber preparation systems is to modify the raw materials for paper production so that the stock suits the requirements of the paper machine as well as those of the finished paper or board. Raw materials are virgin fibers from different sources such as chemical pulps from hard- or softwood or mechanical fibers like SGW, PGW, TMP or CTMP. The largest portion of raw materials today is recovered paper which is processed into secondary or recycled fibers. The recovered paper grades differ a lot as regards fiber compostion and cleanliness levels (see Vol.l). Therefore the processing systems have to take into account these differences as well as the various quality requirements of the finished stock. 

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