Environmental organization Planet Ark has teamed up with Australian Paper for a recycling initiative that will encourage paper users to switch to locally-made recycled office and printing paper.
The ‘Make It Recycled’ partnership aims to improve the latest statistic released by Planet Ark which says less than one in six reams of new office paper includes recycled content, despite the fact that office paper has a recycling rate of 64%.
The campaign seeks to encourage people to reduce the amount of paper headed for landfills and this means businesses, households and the government should use locally-made, high-recycled content paper.
Australian Paper, the country’s only manufacturer of office, printing and packaging papers, is currently building a $90 million paper recycling plant at Maryvale in Victoria to increase the production of local recycled paper.
The plant, which is the only one of its kind in Australia, will be dedicated to producing premium recycled pulp, with manufacturing expected to begin in the second quarter of 2014.
“Planet Ark has a long history of working constructively with businesses to help them lessen their environmental impacts,” said Planet Ark CEO Paul Klymenko in a media release.
“The recycling plant will take up to 80,000 tonnes of wastepaper, which is equivalent to 16 billion sheets of A4 paper, enough to pile a tennis court 1 kilometre high every year.”
NAB has already made the switch to 100% recycled, carbon neutral, FSC certified paper to support the collection and manufacturing of recycled paper in Australia.
NAB’s Supplier Sustainability Manager Sarah Law says they have been pleased with the quality of the locally-made Reflex 100% Recycled paper and have made the transition across their Australian operations without a hitch.
Meanwhile, Australian Paper’s CEO Jim Henneberry said the new paper recycling plant will make Australian-made recycled paper an easy choice.
“We want to move the recycled dial from niche to normal and prove to everyone who buys paper that recycled doesn’t have to mean lower quality,” he said.
“This is an exciting time for sustainable local paper manufacturing and we need the support of paper buyers all over Australia to make it happen.”
For more information on the Make It Recycled campaign, visit PlanetArk.org/MakeItRecycled
