Australia has topped the global list for having the best newspaper recycling rates in the world, for the eighteenth year in a row. The Old Newsprint Recovery 2013 report checks Australia in with a recovery and recycling rate of 78 per cent, just getting the edge on the US, which clocked in at 75 per cent. Peter Netchaef, executive director for environment with The Newspaper Works, commissioned the report on behalf of the industry. He says, “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.”
Australia a standout in newspaper recycling
Analysts Robert Eastment and Tim Wood, from pulp and paper industry researcher IndustryEdge, independently collated the data and compiled the report. It says, “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. “Australia is now almost 10 per cent ahead of most of Europe.” 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. Netchaef 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.” Lillias Bovell, executive director of the Publishers National Environment Bureau – part of The Newspaper Works – says publishers were ‘integral’ in establishing Australia’s kerbside recycling programme; investing $135m in a de-inking plant to do the job for newspapers. She says the industry’s voluntary undertakings have seen recycling increase by almost 300 per cent in the past two decades.
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