Australians are again the best in the world at recycling newspapers, with 78 per cent of readers recycling their copies.
The rate is good enough to edge out the US, with 75 per cent, for top spot on The Old Newsprint Recovery 2013 report.
Analysts Robert Eastment and Tim Wood at pulp and paper industry research company IndustryEdge, collated the data and compiled the independent report.
“The newsprint sector continues to surprise in Australia. Every year, their support and the public’s enthusiasm maintains one of the world’s strongest recycling systems for newsprint,” they wrote.
“Australia is now almost 10 per cent ahead of most of Europe.”
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Australian publishers, together with the country’s only newsprint manufacturer Norske Skog, have had a voluntary plan endorsed by state and federal governments since 1992.
Lillias Bovell, executive director of the Publishers National Environment Bureau, part of newspaper peak body The Newspaper Works, says publishers were ‘integral’ in establishing Australia’s kerbside recycling program.
She says publishers invested $135m in a de-inking plant and that the industry’s voluntary undertakings have seen recycling increase by almost 300 per cent in the past two decades.
The Newspaper Works executive director for environment Peter Netchaef commissioned the report on behalf of the industry.
“Australians recycle so many newspapers in a year that if we lined them up end to end they would stretch to the moon and back twice,” he says.
“The result is a recognition of two decades of solid improvements in recovering our old newspapers for recycling, and of course it is all those Australians who read and recycle their newspapers that should be congratulated on this world class result.
“Our national plan is all about ensuring we have market support for recycling; our members purchase newsprint with a recycled fibre component.
“As well as saving space in our valuable landfills, recycling newspapers and magazines saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”
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