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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) meets several times each year. The group is made up of representatives from various CEPIPRINT member companies and provides a forum for papermakers to express their opinions, concerns and recommendations regarding environmental legislation and developments.
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Integrated Product Policy
The Integrated Product Policy (IPP) is an EC initiative aimed at minimizing environmental impact by looking at all phases of a product's life-cycle. In the paper industry, this starts with the forest and ends with the finished paper product either in use or as waste, before anything that has been recovered goes back into the cycle. Over the past 10 years, every link in the paper supply chain has been encouraged to get involved in shaping IPP, which includes reviewing and updating environmental performance along the way.
The obvious links in the chain are the papermakers and printers, but there are many other links to consider, including transport, fiber sources, inks, fillers and chemicals manufacturers, merchants and the final customer/consumer.
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Eco-labels
Part of the EC's IPP scheme is the award of a Community Eco-label, the EU Flower, to products and services with reduced environmental impacts. The voluntary scheme establishes criteria for individual product groups, including paper. The idea behind the Eco-label scheme is that the consumer will know that labeled products have been assessed and have been found to make less of an environmental impact than other similar competing products.
Criteria for the Eco-label award on copy paper and graphic papers - excluding newsprint - include:
- Water and air emissions
- Energy consumption: electricity and heat
- Sustainable forest management: 10% of the virgin fibers must come from certified forests
- Hazardous chemicals
- Waste management
- Fitness for use
- Information on packaging
The Eco-label is not the only benchmark for consumers, though. The paper industry is keen to promote the use of
Environmental Management Systems (EMS) or Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) such as
Paper Profile as valid alternatives. Ultimately, consumers should be able to refer to any of these certification schemes for proof that the product has been manufactured with environmental welfare uppermost in the producers' mind.
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Paper Profile
Paper Profile is one such alternative declaration scheme, which has been developed by European paper producers - Holmen Paper, Klippan, M-real, Myllykoski, Norske Skog, Sappi Fine Paper Europe, Stora Enso, Trebruk, UPM-Kymmene and Finnish Paper Engineers' Association. The concept of Paper Profile is to provide any interested parties, particularly customers, with environmental data concerning the companies' products.
Customers are able to compare products based on environmental data, which is provided on a standardised sheet. Data includes raw materials, emissions, electricity consumption, wood origin and environmental management systems.
Here are some of the defining criteria of Paper Profile:
- Emissions from both pulp and paper production to be included. The emissions from pulp production must be given for the relative proportion of pulp used in the paper product irrespective of whether the pulp is produced at the same site as the paper or not
- All the operations of the mills from material receiving through waste water treatment and waste disposal shall be included
- Environmental loads of packaging and packaging materials of the final product are excluded
- Allocation within an integrated or non-integrated mill: calculation must be production-line specific in such a way that emission - and other - figures of all co-processes add up to 100% of the total emission load of the site. Information may be given based on annual average product composition
- Allocation must be based on a cause-effect approach: eg, air emissions of a power plant should be allocated to different paper machines at the site based on the power plant steam used by the paper machines
- Annual mean values based on one year should be used for the product in question
- In the event of an introduction of new processes or internal improvements, discharge levels must be determined on the basis of at least three months consecutive samples
- Presentation of information in full percentage figures
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Environmental Management Systems
Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are part of a general management system, consisting of organisation structures, planning functions, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for developing, implementing, fulfilling, analysing and maintaining a company 's environmental policy (www.paperprofile.com). EMSs are ways of implementing pollution reduction and control measures without actually specifying limits or targets. They are mainly a set of guidelines, which papermakers can choose to adopt when it comes to dealing with environmental issues, which concern their mills' production process. CEPIPRINT supports such activities, which point towards equal treatment of Environmental Management Systems in public procurement.
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Environmental Product Declarations
Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) are declarations made by pulp and paper producers with regard to their products. Producers are keen to demonstrate that they have implemented systems that are aimed at keeping their products' environmental impact to a minimum. By publicly stating mill data such as emissions, energy consumption per tonne, etc, customers can clearly see which companies are ahead of the others when it comes to environmental efficiency. It is hoped that EPDs will help consumers to make the right choice when it comes to selecting products.
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Flexographic Printing
Flexographic Printing is a current hot topic for CEPIPRINT and its members. The reason that it has come to our attention is that the spread of flexo printing of newspapers could pose a major threat to European recycling targets.
Flexo started off as a generally low quality printing process for low quality grades, eg, corrugated boxes. Nowadays, modern flexo is capable of extremely high quality, up to and including coated packaging grades. The potential problem in Europe stems from the fact that flexo printed newspaper cannot be deinked to a standard that is suitable for recycling. Considering that newspaper is mainly made from 80-100% recycled fiber, it is clear to see the potential pitfalls.
CEPIPRINT and CEPI recently commissioned a study from industry consultants, Jaakko Pöyry, to investigate the impact of flexo printing in Europe. The results are worrying with the UK and Italy suffering the most. The study shows that if flexo printing rises to 40% in the UK and 39% in Italy, all old newspapers (ONP) and old magazines (OMG) in those two countries would become unsuitable for deinking. Raw materials for newsprint production would be in short supply, which in turn, would push up the price of both raw material and newsprint.
But it is not all bad news, Centre Technique du Papier (CTP) in Grenoble, France, is working hard to find a solution to the deinkability of flexo printed fibers. Many companies already support the project, including CEPIPRINT, and a number of papermakers, printers and chemical manufacturers. |
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