Yrjo Virtanen - Environmental Impacts of Waste Paper Recycling

ENVIRONMENTAL
IMPACTS OF
WASTE PAPER
RECYCLING

Yrj Virtanen and Sten Nilsson

The views and opinions in this document do not necessarily represent those of IIASA or the organisations that support its work.

First published 1993 by
Earthscan Publications Limited

Copyright International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 1993

All rignts reserved

Earthscan
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library

ISBN 1 85383 160 3

Earthscan publishes in association with WWF-UK and
the International Institute for Enviroment and Development.

Our concern for conservation of our natural resources and about the deleterious effects on the environment of disposal of waste products is increasingly reflected in proposed legislation aimed at reducing waste. The preferred technique is recycling of waste products.

While laudable in its objective, a narrow focus on recycling is limited, and can result in unexpected effects that can at least partially offset the expected benefits. This is particularly true of paper for at least three basic reasons. First, paper is a major component about 35% of household waste volume but sites for paper disposal do not coincide with the sites for pulp and paper production. Second, unlike most waste, paper has a very high energy content. And third, unlike coal or oil, paper is a renewable resource, and in Europe is produced mostly from forests managed on sustainable principles.

This book summarizes a feasibility study of large-scale paper recycling in Europe. The study investigated the entire production and disposal process using a life-cycle methodology and database (Lbkert et al., 1991) developed at IIASA. In addition, the feasibility study also used data and results produced by IIASA's Forest Resources Project (Nilsson et al., 1992).

The conclusions of the study, while too preliminary to permit solid quantitative comparisons, indicate that paper recycling has economic and environmental advantages. However, because paper is a renewable resource and has a high energy recovery content, there is the possibility of energy recovery as a suitable option. A balanced mixture of paper recycling and energy recovery seems to be the most suitable solution since recycling minimizes the use of some resources and emissions, and energy recovery minimizes the overall use of fossil fuels. A number of important questions remain that must be further investigated before large-scale programs for increased recycling of paper products are introduced, since the environmental impacts are shown to depend strongly on how extensive and how selective recycling is. The extent of recycling will influence the role of energy recovery and the possibilities of carrying out the necessary silvicultural operations. Thinnings and other silvicultural operations are crucial for the future vitality of the European forests.

Sten Nilsson
Leader
Forest and Climate Change Project, IIASA

We live in a throwaway society, and much of what we throw into Europe's growing rubbish mountain is paper: paper makes up about 35% of total household waste volume. Driven by the anxieties of environmentally concerned citizens, many countries have introduced legislation designed to reduce waste very quickly. Among the main arguments behind the popularity of planning materials recovery from the starting point of closed loop recycling is the general belief in less consumption of resources, less energy consumption, cheaper production costs, and an overall reduction of environmental load through recycling.

Obviously, recycling is a means of reducing waste streams and, accordingly, reducing the demands for waste-treatment capacity It is perhaps less obvious that increased recycling may also actually increase the consumption of nonrenewable resources. Hence, the objective of an efficient material production and recycling scheme should not be to recycle per se, but rather should be to minimize the resource utilization and emissions of all streams of materials in the production cycle, from cradle to grave.

To identify such optimal schemes, it is necessary to consider many different alternative arrangements for material management, because the advantage gained in one respect might easily be lost in another.

This was the general objective of an IIASA feasibility study of recycling paper products in Western Europe. The specific objectives of the study were to evaluate the applicability of a life-cycle approach to paper recycling, to provide new insights into the complexity of introducing large-scale recycling into existing production and distribution systems, and to broaden the debate with new arguments. To identify the outer boundaries for paper recycling in Western Europe and its implications, three different scenarios were

selected: one in which recycling was used to the maximum extent feasible; one in which recycling was used selectively; and a third where recycling was not used at all, but rather waste paper was used as an energy source. The scenarios may not represent realistic future recycling strategies, but they serve the primary purpose of demonstrating the scope of sensitivity of the environmental impacts to different recycling strategies. It should also be pointed out that while we feel that the conclusions of the study correctly indicate trends, they are too preliminary to permit solid quantitative comparisons.

The results in Table S.1 clearly illustrate that identification of optimal material production and recycling schemes, from an environmental point of view, is much more complex than what is included in the current debate. Recycling of paper in Western Europe clearly has economic and environmental advantages, but while maximum recycling reduces demands, maximum recycling also