Making demands: the need for more fiber was a unifying message at the 2004 Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show

Recycling Today, August, 2004 by Brian Taylor, Deanne Toto

Concerns about scarcity provided a common thread through many of the sessions at the 2004 Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show, held at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta in late June.

The conference, hosted by the Recycling Today Media Group and co-sponsored by the Paper Stock Industries (PSI) Chapter of ISRI, brought together some 500 paper recyclers, mill consumers and industry suppliers to discuss the latest trends and issues affecting their industry.

Many of those discussions centered around shortages, including concerns about future shortages of recovered fiber; a shortage of rail cars. trucks and drivers to keep scrap paper moving; and even backed up orders for processing equipment.

LOOKING FOR MORE. in any commodity market, supply and demand are seldom in perfect balance. Trouble can arise when the scale tips too far in one direction, which is where mine forecasters worry the scrap paper markets are headed.

Presenters at the keynote session of the Paper Recycling Conference had different messages, but all revolved around the notion that recyclers would have plenty of job security in the years ahead feeding the world's pulping machines and other scrap paper consumers.

Moderator Bill Moore of paper industry consulting firm Moore & Associates, Atlanta, set the stage by pointing out the dramatic increase in China's use of scrap paper as a feedstock for its booming paper industry. China's need for scrap paper has brought its mill buyers to Japan, Europe and North America to harvest an increasing share of each region's recovered paper.

Henri Vermeulen of The Netherlands-based Kappa Packaging (and the chairman of the European paper trade group CEPI), stated that it will be possible for the recycling industry to supply global needs, but that to explain how is similar to explaining how a bumblebee manages to fly in defiance of the laws of physics.

In Europe, federally mandated residential collection programs have produced considerable new supply, though Vermeulen noted that the world's markets have absorbed this material as quickly as it has been produced.

Such collection efforts in China would be a logical step to help supply meet demand. "At the end of the day, the market will find its own way no matter what every theory predicts," Vermeulen stated.

Simon Davies, president-Recycled Fiber of Georgia-Pacific Corp., Atlanta, noted that those only vaguely familiar with the company probably think of it as a timber company, even though its containerboard and tissue segments are now "over 50 percent reliant on recycled fiber."

Like Vermeulen, Davies pointed to the legislation that has driven European recovery rates and also mentioned the single-stream methods that are harvesting more tonnage in North America.

Despite these successes, Davies pointed to economist Woody Brock's "Chindia" description of China and India's emerging middle class of 600 million consumers. "It's a market the size of the EU and the U.S. put together--a huge emerging middle class that is driving consumption" of all commodities--including scrap paper.

Pieter Eenkema van Dijk, president of recycling equipment supplier Van Dyk Baler Corp., Stamford, Conn., predicted the trend toward fewer but larger recycling plains would continue in coordination with industry consolidation. He offered as proof: "We sell more and more large balers and fewer and fewer small balers."

In North America, haulers continue to dictate the move toward single-stream collection. "Ninety percent of new large curbside sorting systems are single-stream systems," he noted.

In Europe, landfill costs are higher, thus promoting recycling. However, much of Europe's recycling remains source-separated, van Dijk noted. Recylers on both sides of the Atlantic are studying optical systems and advanced screens in the drive to improve automated sorting, he remarked.

DRIVE TO 55. The organization representing many consumers of scrap paper made it clear that it sees recovering more of the commodity as important.

Statistics compiled by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) indicate that half of all paper used in the U.S. was recycled last year. Calling this "a significant milestone," the association says recyclers and mills should aim for a 55 percent rate by 2012.

"Americans have done a great job of recycling paper, but we all need to do more," said Fred yon Zuben, AF&PA Recovered Fiber CEO Committee chairman. He is also the chairman and CEO of The Newark Group, Cranford. N.Y.

At a press event held at the Paper Recycling Conference, von Zuben and other AF&PA officers said the additional 5 percent recovery will be needed as feedstock for North American paper mills. "Greater recovery of these paper products will help ensure a steady, reliable supply of recovered paper for our country's paper manufacturers," said von Zuben.

The AF&PA will work with the U.S. EPA and Keep America Beautiful to help educate and encourage Americans to recycle paper at their homes, offices, schools and other buildings.