Once operational, the Empire Recycled Fiber mill will produce 440,000 tons per year of recycled paper pulp. | Luis M. Seco/Shutterstock
A $125 million recycled paper pulp mill in Pennsylvania will source more than 500,000 tons per year of mixed paper and OCC. The facility will ship its product to China.
The Indonesian government on May 27 announced the official contamination policy for imports of scrap paper, plastic and other materials. | dani daniar/Shutterstock
Paper and plastic shipments to Indonesia will be allowed a maximum of 2% contamination, the country recently announced. The move follows several changes to the country’s import policies last year.
Shipping company MSC stopped accepting scrap cargo headed to China as of June 1. | Fomin Roman/Shutterstock
A major shipping line will no longer accept recovered fiber and other scrap material exports bound for China, in anticipation of the country completely closing the door to those commodities.
Greif CEO Peter Watson noted that closure plans for the company’s Mobile, Ala. facility date back to before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. | hxdyl/Shutterstock
Three paper companies recently closed facilities that use recycled material. Two framed the shutdowns as part of longer-term “optimization” plans, and the third said it is a direct response to the COVID-19 impact on demand.
Once stay-at-home orders and business closures took hold across the U.S., OCC generation declined very sharply. | AdamBoor/Shutterstock
The coronavirus pandemic has sharply diminished OCC collection from established commercial channels and some residential programs. An analyst describes how the virus hit the paper sector, and mill operators offer perspective on how they’re reacting.
Industry group American Forest & Paper Association announced that in the U.S. market 49 million short tons of fiber products were recycled in 2019.| franz12/Shutterstock
Export market turmoil caused a lower recycling rate for paper and paperboard in 2019, an industry group announced. The decline comes after a record year for paper recycling in 2018.
Recycled material shipments out of the U.S. have been on the decline for multiple years due to overseas regulatory changes. | MAGNIFIER/Shutterstock
U.S. exports of recycled paper and plastic were down during the first quarter of 2020 compared with previous years, according to new export data.
Officials estimate that 20 projects receiving grants will collectively divert nearly 44,000 tons of material from landfills each year. | ImagineStock/Shutterstock
North Carolina recently awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to help divert mixed recyclables, organics, paper, plastic and other materials from landfills.
For now, the world’s most populous country continues to approve import licenses for recovered fiber. | peresanz/Shutterstock
China last week enshrined in law its intent to eliminate “solid waste” imports. Even so, the government continues to approve more imports of recovered fiber.