Norwegian waste to energy company Geminor has revealed that it has introduced export of waste paper from Sweden to Germany.
With a surplus of recovered fibre in Sweden, and growing demand from Germany, Geminor has seen opportunity for the exports, especially as the Swedish market is opening up.
Sweden already collects and sorts 75% of the waste paper is consumes. While from 1 January 2022, Swedish municipalities will have ownership and responsibility for the disposal of waste paper, that should create a more open market, according to Geminor.
Geminor is not intending to collect the paper itself, but act as a link between the buyers and sellers.
In particular, it will focus on providing cardboard, cartons and mixed paper to German packaging mills, where it says that Germany is expected to have a deficit of 4.1 million tonnes by 2024 of recovered fibre.
It will use its existing supply lines to transport the waste paper by rail, as it does currently with RDF and SRF.
Geminor country manager Sweden Per Mernelius said: “We have an ambition of moving more of our waste transport to rail, which proves to be the most sustainable transport alternative in Europe today. The rail transport of residual waste fuels to Sweden gives us the opportunity of sending waste paper as return transport to Germany. This is both a sensible and cost-efficient alternative that reduces CO2 emissions.”
