Paper that can be used for recycling comes in many forms from newspapers to junk mail, phonebooks to computer paper and is now widely and easily recycled in your home or business.
The most important thing when recycling paper is that it has to be high quality paper waste – you must only put the correct items for your local area in your collection, many areas differ on what they collect, eg. some take junk mail some don’t, the paper (and card) must not be contaminated with food waste or other items.
- The Uk currently recycles around 66% of it’s paper waste
- Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
- The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year.
- By recycling one ton of newspaper we can save enough electricty to power a 3 bedroom house in th UK for a whole year.
- It can take as little as seven days for a newspaper to be recycled back into newsprint which is used to make new newspapers.
- It takes 24 trees to make one tonne of A4 printer paper.
First, the paper collected from your home or office is delivered to a local depot, it is then sorted, graded, baled up and delivered to a paper mill.
The paper mill then add water to turn it into a pulp, much like making paper mache.
The paper is then screened, cleaned and de-inked until it is suitable for papermaking making it ready to be made into new paper products such as newsprint, cardboard, packaging, tissue and printer paper.
