Paper

Facts and figures

• The average household throws away 3kg or 7lbs of paper each week, however most types of paper can be recycled;
• Paper is a natural material made from wood pulp. It is made up of fibres that are interlaced and compacted in a mesh-like fashion;
• Paper cannot be recycled indefinitely. Each time a fibre is recycled it gets shorter and weaker and therefore it becomes necessary to introduce amounts of wood pulp to maintain quality;
• Recycled paper can be used to produce various items including packaging, newsprint, tissues and office paper etc. To make recycling worthwhile, consumers must ‘close the loop’ and buy recycled products.                               

Why should we recycle paper?

1. It’s a mistake to think that recycling paper will save trees. Paper is produced from soft wood trees, found today in fast-growing, sustainable forests where new trees are planted and grown to replace those cut down. However, as the demand for paper has increased, so has the need for managed forests. To accommodate these, rare environments from ancient forests to natural open landscapes have been cleared and lost forever.
2. Paper is biodegradable and if disposed of in landfill will break down to produce methane and carbon dioxide (poisonous greenhouse gases), which are widely acknowledged to contribute to global warming. Recycling paper also eases pressure on landfill.   
3. Paper recycling uses fewer resources and produces less waste than that produced from raw materials, as the pulping process uses a lot of energy. For each tonne recycled, at least 30,000 litres of water and 3000 - 4000 kilowatt hours of electricity are saved (enough for an average three bedroom house for one year!). Recycling also produces up to 95 per cent less air pollution.                                     

What happens to the paper I collect and how is it recycled?

The paper collected at the kerbside goes to Aylesford Newsprint in Kent, and as the name suggests, they use it to produce newsprint! As printers have a preference for white newsprint only, cardboard and coloured paper are not accepted.                                                                                      

• Raw materials -Ninety per cent of the paper recycled is sourced from local authority kerbside collections, the remainder is sourced from print rooms and over issued stocks.                 
• Transfer station - Paper is delivered to a transfer station where the material is cleaned, sorted, baled and transported to the mill. Here the paper is loaded onto a conveyor belt, consisting of 70 per cent newsprint and 30 per cent magazines. This leads to the pulpers.  

The paper is washed to break up the fibres and ink. Other materials are filtered out and air is passed through the paper pulp to produce a scum which the ink sticks to. The ink is then skimmed off. After six months the ink is harder to remove so fresh paper is best.
	The pulp is heated to 850˚C and the mixture is brightened. No man-made chemicals are used. Filters thicken the pulp which is then pressed between two layers of fine wire mesh to form a sheet and passed between heated rollers at 60mph to dry out.
It is ironed to create a shiny surface and wound onto jumbo rolls weighing approximately 40 tonnes and measuring 9.2 metres wide. This is cut into smaller reels and wrapped ready to be turned into tomorrows newspaper.

 For further information                   

Paper collected by Welwyn Hatfield residents goes to Aylesford Newsprint where 100 per cent recycled newsprint is produced.