Paper industry will not give up on end-of-waste, says BIR

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The paper recycling industry intends to try again for a deal on end-of-waste criteria, according to a speaker at the BIR convention in Miami.

European Recovered Paper Association (ERPA) president Meria Helander, who is also from Finland’s Lassila & Tikanoja company, said that the European Parliament’s rejection late last year of the end-of-waste proposal for paper as “a big surprise and disappointment”.

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The end-of-waste criteria was vetoed by MEPs in December last year, over fears that allowing end-of-waste criteria to be imposed earlier in the recycling chain would allow greater contamination to take place and would have an impact on the environmental health and protection safeguards of the Waste Shipment Regulation.

At the time the decision was welcomed by the Confederation of European Paper Industries.

But ERPA wants to see if a new “binding solution” can be found to come up with new criteria, but Meria Helander recognised that this could take a couple of years.

She added: “ERPA will definitely do its utmost to start the process again. End-of-waste is far too important to our industry. We must not give up but find ways to solve the problems.”

Also at the convention, UK-based J&H Sales managing director Ranjit Baxi highlighted a sharp drop in Europe’s recovered fibre shipments to China from 2.11 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2013 to 1.897 million tonnes in the corresponding period this year.

US shipments to the same destination were broadly unchanged whereas deliveries to China from other Asian countries soared from 318,000 tonnes to 727,000 tonnes.

China’s total imports from all sources were fractionally higher in this year’s first quarter at 7.2 million tonnes.

At the convention, Ranjit Baxi was also awarded with the BIR Paper Division Papyrus prize to honour paper recycling champions. He was also made an Honorary President of the BIR Paper Division.