Recycling - PNEB - Newspaper and Magazine Recycling

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The Recycling Process

Recycling Success in Australia

The Industry's Role

Your Role

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The Industry’s Role

The original ANZECC Industry Waste Reduction Agreement for newsprint provided a framework for a structured development of newspaper recycling in Australia. The partners agreed on a plan that had several important components.

Australian Newsprint Mills (now Norske Skog Australasia) agreed to install a de-inking and recycling plant at its Albury Mill. This was done in two stages at a total cost of $135 million.

In the meantime, Australia’s newspaper and magazine publishers agreed to contribute $6million to create an Interim Support Fund to assist recycling until the new plant could be built. The money has been used to fund over a hundred different projects, achieving significant results in such areas as:

ensuring the viability of kerbside recycling in South Australia;
looking at new ways to use old newspapers;
improving the infrastructure of kerbside collection;
improving collection rates; and
improving the economics of newsprint collection and return to Albury and for export to Asia.

To ensure the long-term viability of kerbside paper recycling, Kerbside Papers offered Councils the security of firm contracts with a guaranteed price for kerbside collected paper. Paper not used at Albury was exported, even if this was at a loss.

Publishers also agreed on long term supply contracts with the newsprint producers, which enabled the Australian recycling plant to operate efficiently, even though paper was often available from overseas suppliers more cheaply.

Overall, this amounts to a serious commitment to proper product stewardship from the main participants in the Australian publishing industry.

Read more about the industry’s environmental initiatives and commitments here.
Read more about the industry’s activities in community education and recycling promotion here.