Page 8 - BOSS Today Issue 16

Paper

GREEN

RELIEF

The paper market f you take a helicopter view, towards a digital office. And according to one of them,
Faced with such a collapse,
may be down, but Ithe overall picture of the paper he says, paper mills are looking some of these methods, if they
industry in the UK could be
continue to catch on, could in
environmental summed up in one word: grim. at ways of either taking capacity fact see manufacturing return to
According to Tim Bowler,
out, or of switching to other
the UK, albeit in an altered form.
initiatives that director of the National markets – biomass, for example, Much of this activity centres
dealers can get Association of Paper Merchants or the packaging industry – to around what are known as closed
loop systems that are designed
make up for the shortfall.
(NAPM), the graphics paper
involved in are market has had to stomach a That shouldn’t, he says, affect to recycle paper from the end
still providing 26% shrinkage in the past four Britain too much, because user and bring it back into the
conventional paper production
market again – often, but not
years. “That is an enormous
rich dividends amount when you consider all has to a large extent moved out always, to the same customer.
the warehousing and logistics of the UK anyway. There are only The idea was first tried in the
they have to take account of,” he three mills left in the country UK by Banner, and according
says. producing paper. to managing director Richard
Nor has the economic Costin, the company came up
downturn been the sole Innovation with the scheme after making a
reason. Bowler believes many Still, individual paper series of startling discoveries.
large corporates – traditionally companies themselves, while “We had a customer, the
the paper industry’s most acknowledging the relative HMRC, who was having
enthusiastic clients – have used weakness of the conventional some data issues,” he says.
the recession as a reason to scale market – for virgin paper at least “We conducted analysis to
back on the amount of paper - are finding innovative new ways see what the true cost of their
they use anyway and move more to keep the customer interested. paper disposal system was and

8 BOSS TODAY | March/April 2013

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