60
ed to Turkey, India, Indonesia,
Vietnam and Thailand, demonstrating
the dynamism of the market and that
other countries can and will compete
with China. ‘Whatever happens, it
appears there is a destination for our
material,’ was Ellin’s conclusion.
The quality of the UK’s recovered
paper has improved ‘enormously’ over
recent years, according to the TRA’s
chief executive. ‘I believe the rejection
rate of paper going into China was
0.09% last year,’ he observed. ‘This is
remarkable, and certainly a lot lower
than that of North America.’
‘utterly rAndom’
‘America has more virgin content in the
recovered fibre stream, so it has longer
fibres to offer compared to Europe; as
a result, import reductions are about
half in the US as they are here,’ point-
ed out Marek Skorwider of Mondi in
Poland. ‘In that sense, we are the vic-
tims of our successful efforts to raise
overall recycling rates and use of recy-
cled content. It doesn’t make sense for
China to pick short fibres over long
fibres if it has the choice. Instead of
trying to get more business in that
area, let us dedicate ourselves to an
area where we can compete.’
The ‘strange’ aspect of recent devel-
opments is that even good material
has been sent back on several occa-
sions, according to Andreas Otto of
Germany’s Melosch Export. ‘We’ve
had paper that was (of a) higher grade
than the standards dictate returned to
us. How can this be? This is a waste of
time and money. And it seems utterly
random.’
He called for China’s port officials to
be better regulated to ensure quality
targets are properly enforced.
‘robust prospects’
Global recovered fibre trade flows
amounted to around 57 million tonnes
in 2016, reported David Powlson of
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