BOOK INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS 2016

This nuance may have caused the decline in the use of recycled paper in books to appear greater than the
reality. However, there are also several real challenges facing book publishers and printers who wish to
increase or even maintain current levels of recycled fiber.
And while this survey did not ask about the reasons for recycled fiber declines at the paper manufacturer
level, the BIEC has explored and discussed this topic internally with several authorities over time. Causes
point to (1) increased contamination from single stream recovery and mixed waste processing centers; (2)
reduced availability of fiber due to shrinking paper consumption and competition for recycled fiber with
overseas markets (particularly China); (3) capacity closures of deinking facilities; and (4) production shuts
of paper mills or machines that produced high recycled content grades (i.e. FutureMark Paper [September
2014] and Manistique [March 2015]).
1. Single Stream Recycling has become a serious problem for paper manufacturers who produce fine
printing paper for many reasons:
a. The fiber required for making fine printing paper needs to be especially clean, and single-stream
fiber is obviously highly contaminated. This contamination reduces yields for the
de-inking facilities – effectively raising costs.
b. Sorting high quality fiber from the single stream is expensive and less effective such that it
produces less “good” fiber than pre-sorted streams.
c. Paper fiber is inherently not as valuable as say metal in the recycling stream (or as easily
sortable) - which doesn’t help in the recovery effort.
d. Naturally absorbent paper fiber tends to take on
moisture weight in the single stream which again
reduces yield and increases freight in transporting
the sorted fiber.
2. Availability of recyclable fiber for use in the production
of recycled fine printing paper grades has been reduced
partially because paper consumption in N.A. is so far off
of historical highs, and because the fiber that is available
is in high demand by overseas markets who are
fiber poor. Even though the most recent AF&PA statistics
report fiber recovery at almost 67%, the amount of
paper being used and consumed continues to decline. As
consumption falls, so does the availability of high quality
recyclable fiber for these grades. And the fiber that is
recovered (often contaminated) is in high demand from
overseas markets (particularly China) who don’t have
enough virgin fiber to feed their demand.
3. The net effect of the above dynamic has been the closure
of de-inking facilities and recycled paper machines /
mills. Some of the remaining recycled paper producers
have reduced the amount of recycled fiber in their grade
offerings. Only a few specialty mills are able effectively to
make high-quality recycled grades with a lot of recycled
content, but those grades are often considered “specialty”
and may be priced as such relative to their virgin fiber
alternatives.
THERE ARE
SEVERAL REAL
CHALLENGES
FACING BOOK
PUBLISHERS
AND PRINTERS
WHO WISH TO
INCREASE OR
EVEN MAINTAIN
CURRENT LEVELS
OF RECYCLED
FIBER.
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