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Publishers’ Recycling Initiatives Praised by Ministers

The achievement of the Australian publishing industry in achieving a world record level of recycling newspapers has been praised by the nation's environment ministers at the April meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council in Adelaide.

The publishing industry, represented by the Publishers National Environment Bureau, and Australia's newsprint manufacturer, Norske Skog, (the Newsprint Producer Publisher Group) has a five year Industry Waste Reduction Agreement with the Commonwealth and State Governments.

Bales of old newspapers and magazines are shipped to Albury NSW for de-inking and manufacture into new newspaper. Picture: Norske Skog.

Part of this agreement is that the Producer/Publisher Group reports annually against targets, including reaching 74% newspaper recycling by the end of 2005.

Also part of the agreement is a Mid-term Review. This was produced by the PNEB in collaboration with Norske Skog and was submitted to the April 15 meeting of the Standing Committee of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council.

The Standing Committee decided the PNEB review should be added to the agenda for the ministers' meeting the following day, where it was received with enthusiasm.

The official communiqué from the meeting said:

"A particularly good example of industry achieving ambitious targets is the newsprint industry, and Council commended Australia's newsprint industry for leading the world in recycling.

"The Newspaper Industry Waste Reduction Agreement Mid Term Report shows newsprint recycling has increased from just 28% in 1989 to 73.5% in 2003 - the highest in the world, and very close to the target of 74% by the end of 2005.

"By recycling this material, the industry is also saving 200,000 tonnes annually from entering the waste stream."

The full Mid-Term Review is available for download as a PDF
Mid-Term Review and Report on Year 3 (to December 31, 2003) (PDF - 703KB)

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