<B>Paper Recycling in Ontario Reaches Record</B>

Ontario’s paper recycling plants used a record 2.3 million metric tons of recovered fiber last year to make new paper products.

This is an impressive 38 percent increase over 1994 and can be attributed largely to the conversion of mill machinery to the use of recycled content, and to the boost in capture of used paper materials from Ontario households.

Weyerhaeuser’s corrugated medium mill at Sturgeon Falls was converted to 100 percent to 100 percent recycled content and Thunder Bay Packaging converted an old newsprint machine to make 100 percent recycled corrugated medium as well.

On the residential front, industry efforts spearheaded the expansion of paper fiber collection the early and mid 1990s.

Most of the paper recycled in Ontario comes not from homes but from industrial, commercial and institutional sources – from factories, hospitals and small businesses who send their used paper and board for recycling. For example, just one major Ontario supermarket chain sends four times as many old corrugated boxes for recycling as all the municipalities of Ontario combined. The Blue Box contribution is about 20 percent of the total.

Another feature of the Ontario paper recycling market is that the recycling mills can use virtually all of the used paper and board that Ontario industry and homeowners can provide. They have invested millions of dollars in deinking and cleaning and screening equipment to be able to do this. At the moment, however, Ontario simply cannot supply enough the keep the recycling mills going and meeting the demands of their customers. Over a million metric tons (45 percent) of the paper recycled in Ontario is shipped into the province from the United States.

About 630,000 metric tons of this is old newspaper imported primarily by Ontario newsprint recycling mills and used to make new recycled content newsprint for U.S. and Canadian publishers. Some 230,000 metric tons of old corrugated containers is imported to make new corrugated or paperboard boxes to ship products in and around Canada and elsewhere, and 150,000 metric tons of other used paper imported mainly to help make tissue and toweling products. – Source PPEC