BIR report highlights importance of recovered paper in global packaging sector

The Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) recently released its “Paper and Board Recycling in 2020: Overview of world statistics” report, noting that 2020 was “a year that will live long in the global memory for one specific reason: the COVID[-19] pandemic.” But the report indicates cause for optimism when it comes to the role of recovered paper in paper and board production, revealing that more than half of all paper and board produced globally contained recycled content.

According to the study, BIR Paper Division officials conclude 52.2 percent of the world’s paper and board contained recovered fiber, an increase from 51.2 percent in 2019 and 50.3 percent in 2018.

Production

The report shows global production of recovered fiber fell from nearly 244 million metric tons in 2019 to just below 240 million metric tons in 2020. Asia accounted for 43.8 percent of global recovered paper production, ahead of Europe at 27 percent and the United States and Canada at just under 20 percent.

“It should be remembered that global paper and board production was already on a downtrend even before the pandemic emerged,” BIR Paper Division President Francisco Donoso says in the report. “The growth seen in the packaging and tissue segments was being more than outweighed by the inexorable decline in demand for newsprint and writing.”

He adds, “The one message standing out above all others is that, even during a global pandemic, the recovered paper industry continued to play its essential role in supplying the world paper and board industry with specification raw material.”

Global paper and board production fell approximately 14 million metric tons in 2020 to fewer than 399 million metric tons total, and the report shows the U.S./Canada and Oceania regions with the steepest year-on-year decline, down 4.4 percent to 46.6 million metric tons and 6 percent to 3.1 million metric tons, respectively.

The report indicates the downward trend also was reflected in numbers from Asia, which produced 104.9 million metric tons of recovered paper in 2020, down 0.8 percent from 2019, while significant year-on-year increases were recorded in the Middle East (up 7 percent t0 3.7 million metric tons) and Africa (up 4.4 percent to 3.4 million metric tons).

International trade

Fiber is not necessarily recovered where it is most needed, the BIR says, and as such, international trade has long been essential to the worldwide usage of paper for recycling, adding that “structural surpluses in one part of the world can be used to feed production processes elsewhere—in develop countries, for example, where recovery/production rates are currently insufficient to meet often rapidly increasing local and regional demand.”

The U.S. saw a steep decline in exports to several countries, including to China, which decreased 16.6 percent to 4.5 million metric tons in 2020. U.S. recovered paper exports to other destinations also decreased:

• India, 30 percent decrease to 2.1 million metric tons;
• Canada, 11.1 percent decrease to 0.8 million metric tons;
• South Korea, 20 percent decrease to 0.8 million metric tons; and
• Indonesia, 44.4 percent decrease to 0.5 million metric tons.

U.S. recovered paper exports increased to several countries, however:

• Mexico, 7.7 percent increase to 1.4 million metric tons; and
• Vietnam, 18.2 percent increase to 1.3 million metric tons.

Europe has established itself as a major exporter of recovered paper because of a material surplus thanks to a collection rate of more than 70 percent. The report shows the United Kingdom led the way in recovered paper exports with 3.8 million metric tons, down from 4.3 million metric tons in 2019. Other European countries to export seven-figure tonnages in 2020 were:

• Netherlands, 2.5 million metric tons,
• France, 2.3 million metric tons,
• Germany, 2.2 million metric tons,
• Italy, 1.8 million metric tons, and
• Poland, 1.1 million metric tons.

Of those nations, Poland was the only country to increase its recovered paper exports in 2020, up from 1 million metric tons the previous year, while Germany was Europe’s top importer of recovered paper in 2020 at nearly 4.6 million metric tons.

The U.S. imported 0.3 million metric tons of recovered paper from Europe in 2020, down from 0.5 million metric tons in 2019.

Pulp production

The report shows U.S. and Canada remained the leading pulp producer in 2020 with 57.7 million metric tons, but that number reflects a 5.1 percent decrease from 60.8 million metric tons in 2019.

Worldwide consumption of pulp was down to 170 million metric tons in 2020 compared with 183 million metric tons the previous year, with the United States consuming 48.3 million metric tons (down from 51 million metric tons in 2019).

The BIR says global production of paper and board had been on a downward trend even before the significant market shifts brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, but that 2020 saw a much steeper decline. The organization does say, however, there were increases in global packaging and tissue production, but those numbers were offset by substantial declines in newsprint production, which fell 23 percent, as well as printing and writing paper production, which saw a more than 14-percent decrease.

Tissue production increases were across the board, with the U.S. increasing 6.4 percent to 9.7 million metric tons as well as a 1.8 percent increase in packaging production to 52.2 million metric tons. But newsprint production losses in the United States were substantial, falling 26.7 percent to 2.5 million metric tons, and printing and writing paper production down 19.9 percent to 10.4 million metric tons.

The report concludes, “Data contained in this third edition illustrate the importance of recovered [fiber] in the production of paper and board around the world, particularly in the growing packaging segment,” with the BIR adding that the significance in the global production mix intensified in 2020 with the proportion of recovered paper used in packaging increasing from 86 percent in 2019 to 87 percent in 2020.

“The paper recycling industry enshrines the principles of a circular economy given that we are clearly heading in the direction of a world in which recycling content will become an ever-increasing component of the final paper and board product mix,” the study says. “To ensure that recovered [fiber] achieves its full consumption potential, international free trade in this vital raw material must be safeguarded.”