Tomra Sorting Recycling's new e-book addresses the need to improve de-inking recycling rates

Downloadable e-book looks at the commercial and regulatory pressures on deinking and recycling paper and cardboard, and introduces a new technology which reduces complexity and costs while increasing recovery rates.

TOMRA Sorting Recycling has published an e-book providing advice for businesses that sort paper and cardboard for deinking and recycling. The new online publication addresses the rising commercial and regulatory pressures for higher recovery rates of deinked pulp, and the fact that meeting these demands will require new technical solutions.

The new e-book, which is downloadable free-of-charge at https://leads.tomra.com/ebook/paper/, opens with the statement: “Deinking needs rethinking.” This is because the supply of deinked and recycled paper is already insufficient to meet demand, and demand is continuing to rise. Europe and North America, the world leaders in paper and cardboard recycling, have made great progress over the past two decades, but now their recycling rates are levelling out. Europe recycled 72.5% of all the paper it consumed in 2016, but the European Declaration on Paper Recycling has set the goal of recycling 74% by 2020. This is a difficult challenge because all the ‘easy wins’ have already been won.

Future regulations will only intensify pressures on the paper and print industries to improve recycling (and hence also deinking) rates. One indicator of likely future trends is the European Commission’s goal of making Europe a ‘circular economy’. Strict certification standards such as the EU Ecolabel and Germany’s Blue Angel quality-mark are expected to become even more demanding. Even now, public procurement policies are being changed to encourage more paper and cardboard deinking and recycling.

Another example of the impact of tightening regulations is China’s National Sword policy, which came into force earlier this year. For years China took almost half of all global waste paper exports, but now all recyclable materials arriving in the country must have purity levels greater than 99.5%, which means much more paper sorting, deinking and recycling is having to be done ‘at home’ prior to export to China.

However, as TOMRA’s e-book reports, more can be done. Whereas paper fibers are recycled 3.6 times on average in Europe (according to the European Paper Recycling Council), in the rest of the world the average is currently only 2.4 times. Everywhere there is the need or potential to improve paper recycling rates. In addition to greater emphasis on recyclability in the design and manufacture of paper products, there must also be improvements in techniques for removing ink from paper products and in sorting materials suitable for deinking.

New technology simplifies sorting for deinking, and results in higher recovery rates
The second section of TOMRA’s e-book looks at a new technology which can improve sorting paper and cardboard for deinking with impressive results. This new solution is SHARP EYE - a breakthrough made by enhancing TOMRA’s FLYING BEAM® technology, which was already the one of the leading sensor technologies on the market.

As the first near-infrared (NIR) scan system with point-scanning (without any need for external
lamps), FLYING BEAM focuses intensively on the area of the conveyor belt being scanned and can
distinguish even the finest molecular differences in materials flowing down the recycling line. SHARP
EYE’s new optical sensor for higher light intensity has made it possible to detect even the most
difficult-to-distinguish properties. Now by combining TOMRA’s AUTOSORT machine and SHARP EYE
technology, it is possible to identify materials suitable for deinking. And in those cases where a twostep
process was previously necessary to achieve recovery of recyclable paper above 90%, it is now
possible to achieve rates as high as 96% in just one step.
The infeed material sent through AUTOSORT will typically contain polymers and brown and grey
cardboards. This is where AUTOSORT’s exceptional precision in detecting material differences is a
significant advantage: to less sophisticated machines, grey cardboard can look very similar to grey
newspaper, white cardboard can look like white office-grade paper, and cardboards from
supermarket packaging can also look like papers. By being able to tell the difference, AUTOSORT
avoids over-sorting which wastefully discards usable materials.
The quality of input materials - which varies from nation to nation according to legislation and
collecting arrangements - ultimately determines whether a one-step or two-step process is required
with AUTOSORT, but TOMRA’s new process greatly increases the proportion of runs which need only
one step. This reduces the time needed, machinery required, and energy consumed in sorting pulp,
to help meet the increasing demand for recycled paper of a high quality.
Owners of latest-generation AUTOSORT machines can benefit from this progress by upgrading to the
TOMRA AUTOSORT with SHARP EYE technology.