Recycled paper as an economic resource – expert interview

1.
Chinese import restrictions are causing shifts in waste trade flows all over the world. What is happening and what can we expect to happen in future, especially when it comes to recovered paper?

China has issued quality specifications and awarded volume licences at the same time. In addition, it has clearly stated that by the end of 2021 it plans to no longer be importing wastepaper and is looking to achieve greater independence. There has been a clear shift in export volumes from China to other countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, India and so on in 2018. Since then, however, those countries have come to the realisation that these recycled paper grades often don’t meet the ever-growing demand. In the past, these grades were simply used to move waste to the Far East for high prices but without any real quality requirements.

As such, countries from that region are increasingly drawing up clearly defined quality specifications for wastepaper or limiting import volumes. There is a call for better quality, with fewer foreign substances, which in turn requires clean collection and sorting in Europe and the US. The focus is on single-origin, high-quality recovered paper, which constitutes a highly valuable raw material in the paper industry. As has repeatedly been stated in the press, “Asia doesn’t want to be a dumping ground for the US or EU”.

2.
Is this having or might it soon be likely to have an effect on the consumer?

For countries that already collect single-origin recovered paper, such as Germany or Austria, I currently can see very little change on the horizon. In other places, where recovered paper is collected together with plastic, milk or juice packaging (aseptic cartons) and perhaps glass or textiles, which can contaminate the wastepaper with liquids, I certainly expect changes that will end up having an impact on the general public. 

But thanks to increased media coverage, there is now much greater public awareness. The industrial side of recycling, including the exporting of carefully separated waste to other countries, however largely remains under the radar. We have also sparked a process of reflection on our relationship with waste, the environment and our own responsibility.

3.
What measures should be taken at a political level – both nationally and internationally – to boost residual waste/old materials as an economic resource?

Conserving resources requires appropriate legal and economic framework conditions. At a political level, we can raise the rate of recycling, but we also have to create the conditions for the collected volumes of residual waste to find a sales market. I’m talking about tax incentives, tax ratio stimuli, facilitation and minimum baseline requirements for the use of old materials. What’s more, developing countries must be supported to establish better collecting, sorting and multi-use systems.