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Britain imports 60% of its paper and board consumption, with 50% coming from Scandinavia.
Of paper produced in the UK over half is from waste paper, a third from imported pulp, mainly from Canada, USA and Scandinavia and the rest from UK pulp. Approximately 1% is non wood fibre based. (7)
The UK collected almost 62% of paper consumed (just under 12.5 m tonnes consumed and 7.7 m tonnes collected)
There are about 80 paper mills in the UK (there have recently been closures)
Recycled paper is the main raw material. Utilisation rate is 75% (amount of recovered paper used against productivity). Newspapers contain about 60% recycled material.
In the UK about 20% of household waste is paper and cardboard. A significant amount is recyled but nevertheless about 2.5 milllion tonnes goes into landfill each year. (9)
UK paper consumption requires a forest the size of Wales each year. (9)
Recycling saves a significant amount of energy - from 28% to 70% compared with using virgin materials.
The European Declaration of Paper Recovery suggested that 19% of paper consumption is not recoverable or recyclable - so a further 2.4 m tonnes is still available in the UK waste stream for collection - however the economic difficulties of increasing collection levels may not allow all of it to be used
(6) www2.defra.gov.uk/science/project_data/DocumentLibrary/NF0516/NF0516_3187_FRP.doc is a general paper about renewables and has sections on both paper and dye.
(7) www.poptel.org.uk/iied/smg/pubs/rethink4.html (Indian and UK paper consumption)
(8) www.channel4.com/science/microsites/S/science/neture/recycle.html
(9) www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/home/environment/recycling/factsheets
http://www.paperrecovery.org