Paper recycling is one of the most attention-grabbing topics of our time, especially when it comes to the environment. After all, there is hardly a day when you don't come into contact with paper, cardboard or cardboard in some form or another.

It starts with mail or letters and quick notes on a piece of paper, extends to packaging in the supermarket or shipping packaging from online retailers to paper bags, documents, tickets and much more.

In our everyday lives, paper is indeed ubiquitous and an indispensable product. This is also made clear by the figures: In Germany alone, up to 25 million tons of paper are produced each year to sufficiently cover the large demand.

The good thing is that over 18 million tons are recovered from waste paper. In the following, we explain how paper recycling works from a technical perspective.

Paper recycling - the most important at a glance

• For the production of high-quality recycled paper, you also always need correspondingly high-quality waste paper.
• The actual cleaning process is carried out by the so-called deinking with integrated floating process.
• Corrugated cardboard boxes and cartons are among the most sustainable and environmentally friendly packaging solutions. At Palamo you will find a diverse selection of premium quality recycled products.

What exactly is paper recycling anyway

The definition of the term paper recycling is, of course, self-explanatory to a large extent. Nevertheless, it is easy to make the wrong assumptions. Surveys confirm that many Germans still misinterpret the term recycling and equate it with reuse.

However, this is not correct: According to the law, in Germany one may only speak of recycling when the respective product disposed of can be classified as waste.

If, on the other hand, it is not a waste product, you can speak of reuse. The latter has nothing to do with recycling. Instead, recycling always involves a cycle. Paper is a classic example of a recycled product.

For example, if you no longer need newspapers, magazines, exercise books or cardboard boxes and other packaging, you can dispose of them in the waste paper garbage can. The waste paper is collected there at regular intervals and then reprocessed before it is returned to the cycle as a new paper product.

The importance of paper recycling for environmental and climate protection

Cartons or, for example, shipping and product packaging made of corrugated board are particularly often made of recycled paper. Most conventional newspapers are also based on recycled paper.

The more waste paper is recycled, the fewer trees are ultimately felled. That, in turn, is good for the climate and the environment. What's more, recycling waste paper consumes fewer resources and less energy than producing new paper.

Paper recycling therefore plays an important role in terms of environmental compatibility and climate protection. When you choose Palamo's products, which are manufactured in an energy-efficient and resource-saving manner and are made of environmentally friendly materials, you are also opting for sustainability in all respects.

Recycled paper produces around 20 percent fewer CO2 emissions compared to virgin fiber paper.

The recycling process at a glance

The recycling process can always be divided into different phases. Paper manufacturers first purchase the available grades of recovered paper. Purchasing is always based on the intended use and the desired quality of the recycled paper to be produced.

Before the purchased recovered paper can then be used for the production of new paper, several preparatory processing steps are required.

The waste paper must first be defibered. This is done with the aid of pulpers or pulpers. Before this, non-paper components are removed. This is done using screens and by means of mechanical and manual sorting.

If higher-quality printing papers are to be produced, the waste paper must also be completely freed of the printing ink or the various printing inks. Manufacturers use the deinking process for this purpose.

Various chemicals are used to ensure that the printing ink detaches from the paper fibers and is filtered out. However, the fibers lose quality during the preparation and deinking process.

With regard to the paper cycle, this means that paper manufacturers must also repeatedly add virgin fibers in order to be able to produce paper of the appropriate quality. Only then can the new paper be produced in the form of webs.

1. Sorting as a prerequisite for technical processing:

   Sorting represents an essential process step that makes the subsequent technical implementation of the recycling process for the production of certain types of recovered paper possible in the first place. Thus, in this first step, dark and light packaging are carefully separated from each other.

   This is important because dark cardboard fibers in the

   

   cannot be converted into white or light-colored fibers later on. This means that in order to produce light-colored grades of board, manufacturers also need light-colored paper fibers. Conversely, dark board or paper grades can only be produced if dark fibers are available as a base material.

   The basic rule here is: Newspapers, magazines and catalogs, for example, have very different characteristics as recovered paper than collected folding cartons or shipping packaging made of corrugated board.

2. The EN 643 standard as a standard for grades of recovered paper:

   The recovered paper industry and waste management companies have agreed on the EN 643 standard. This is an internationally recognized standard for the sale and purchase of recovered paper.

   The standard specifies which properties and qualities the respective paper grades must have and on which components they are based. It also specifies exactly what the paper grades must not contain. Accordingly, no non-paper components may be found in the recovered paper.

   Especially plastic, glass and metal are to be explicitly mentioned here. In addition, the standard requires manufacturers to sort out objects such as paper clips, plastic parts and, for example, glued-in CDs and product samples.

   Adhesives (known as stickies) must also not be found in the subsequent waste paper pulp. Sometimes cost-intensive processes are used here to filter out adhesives and adhesive residues.

   This is important not only with regard to substances in the adhesive that may be hazardous to health, but also because of the risk of damage to screens and other machine components. The materials sorted out in each case are usually disposed of directly by the respective paper manufacturer. In some cases, however, they can also be reused in the construction, cement or metal industries.

   According to the standardized EN 643 norm, the standard grades of recovered paper can be divided into a total of five groups. Corrugated board, together with used kraft paper, belongs to the fourth group. This is how the groups are classified in detail:
   
   

   Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5
   Lower varieties	Medium varieties	Better varieties	Powerful varieties	Special varieties
   Sorted and mixed waste paper Illustrated, Magazines Department store waste paper Telephone directories Deinking goods	Newspapers Unsold newspapers Colorful files (for example, from folders) White chips from printers	White newsprint Writing and printing paper (white files) White business forms	Corrugated board Used kraft paper	Beverage packaging Wet strength papers Wet labels

   
   
   
   
3. The filtering out of non-paper materials:
   

   This does not yet involve the removal of printing inks. Rather, this process step removes what are known as non-paper components from the paper. These non-paper materials include, for example, staples, paper clips or small plastic and metal parts.

   One of the main problems is the possible contamination of the recycled paper stock with sticky impurities or stickies. In most cases, these cannot be sorted out or separated with conventional sorting units.

   Therefore, the plants usually have to be extended by appropriate screening and separation components. In this context, dynamic sticky detection methods are also important in order to specifically quantify sticky impurities of different size classes.

   On the basis of such sticky detection methods, however, not only the separation of adhesive substances can be optimized, but also the recyclability of the individual printed products.

4. Crushing and initiation of the deinking process:
   

   Once all non-paper objects and particles have been removed from the waste paper, the waste paper shredding process starts. Depending on the manufacturing process and the material used, cartons and other packaging solutions made of corrugated board differ in terms of hardness, strength, stability and other properties.

   After the waste paper has passed the sorting

   

   and the non-paper materials have been filtered out, the waste paper is shredded mechanically or automatically. This is done, for example, by shredding knives in combination with punches.

   In this way, the manufacturers prepare the recovered paper for the next process stage - the so-called pulping. In this pulping process, the recovered paper, which has been shredded into cardboard and paper pieces, is fed into a water-filled pulper in the form of a stirred tub.

5. Separation process and washing process for clean waste paper:
   

   The functional system is reminiscent of an oversized mixer. Underneath the agitator, i.e. the actual driver, an oversized screen is usually additionally installed in modern systems. The waste paper pulp is pumped through this screen.

   Remnants of staples, plastic, metals, undetached films or wires that could not be separated out during the initial removal of non-paper materials collect on the screen in the process. By adding chemicals to the water, the waste paper is then freed from printing inks as part of the deinking process.

   This is also referred to as the washing process. In the majority of cases, the Floating method is used. This is a special separation process for small solids. In some cases, however, the waste paper pulp is simply washed with soap.
   
   
6. Addition of virgin fibers and final process step:
   

   Once broken down, the fibrous waste paper pulp now consists of up to about 90 percent water. To increase the quality of the end product, paper manufacturers usually enrich the pulp with fresh fibers. This again significantly increases the strength, stability and resistance of the subsequent recycled cartons.

   The pulp of recovered paper and virgin fibers is then sprayed onto the rollers of the reprocessing machine, which distribute the pulp in webs. The drying process then follows.
   
   This is completed as soon as the water has completely evaporated. In the final process phase, these dried webs are then turned into new cartons.
   
   

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