Image source: Stora Enso
Finnish renewables solutions provider Stora Enso has made public its aim to begin the large scale recycling of used paper cups at its Langerbrugge Mill in Belgium. The company has already ran several production trials and has concluded that it possesses the technical feasibility to recycle the paper cups into other paper-based applications.
Stora Enso is now in search of partnerships for the collections and sorting of used paper cups to ensure that the material is captured and put into the circular economy.
Recycled fibre is an important material for Stora Enso as it is in line with the company's goal of moving towards a completely renewable, circular business. Recycling a paperboard paper cup can reduce its overall carbon footprint by half and Stora Enso sees this as an opportunity to create more effective paper cup recycling by developing circular models and forming strong partnerships across the value chain.
“With efficient recycling processes, food service companies using wood fibre-based cups can improve their environmental footprint. Recycling must be made easy for consumers, that is why we want to invite partners and customers to jointly develop business models for collecting paper cups,” says Annica Bresky, Executive Vice President of the Stora Enso Consumer Board division.
The recycling trials held at Langerbrugge Mill used 500,000 post-consumer paper cups from fast food restaurants and coffee shops which were pulped and recycled into magazine paper. It was found that the resulting fibres are well suited for other paper applications like magazine.
Producing 540,000 tonnes of recycled newsprint and magazine papers annually, the Langerbrugge Mill is one of the largest paper mills in Europe. Production is exclusively from recycled paper products. With around 80 million people living within 300km of the mill, there is a huge source for recycled raw materials.
“We see paper cups as a valuable raw material for our process. Used paper cups provide a potential source of high-quality fibre for the production of magazine paper. Langerbrugge Mill has the technical readiness to accept billions of used cups for recycling within our sourcing area. The challenge is more about getting these cups to us on the industrial scale that our production would require,” says Rik Van Bostraeten, Sourcing Manager, Multifuel & Business Innovation, Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill.
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