Recyclability standard and design for recyclability guidelines:

The paper and paper packaging industry has maintained a well established recycling industry for decades in South Africa, with overall paper collection (diverted from landfill) over 60% and recycled into new paper, packaging and tissue products over 50%. These volumes are largely made up of old corrugated container and container board, office paper and newsprint, magazines, and coated paper recycling. The quality specification of these recycling grades is well defined by industry, however it lacks a formal recyclability standard, by which paper packaging and products could be resigned to ensure inclusion in the recycling stream. (from PAMSA, www.thepaperstory.co.za)

The current grades exclude many other categories of packaging covered under the EPR regulations. These include paper sacks/board with wet strength resins or non-paper elements such as windows, multilayer paper/board with plastic, metal or biodegradable coatings and label backing paper. These materials require advanced equipment, processes, and chemistry to recycle and recover fibre from them and therefore they are not compatible with standard mill recycling, which recycles old packaging papers, office paper and newsprint, magazines, and coated papers. These mills use low consistency, short retention time repulping techniques to disintegrate the material and recover fibre. The categories above do not adequately disintegrate under these conditions.

The purpose of this work is to establish a working standard with industry to inform on the recyclability of paper and paper packaging, including a standardised test method and collection system requirements to define a paper-based material recyclable in South Africa. The EPR regulations in South Africa require producers of packaging materials covered under the regulation to implement environmental labels and declarations in accordance with SANS 14021 and SANS 14024. Relevant to this work is SANS 14021, which among others require a substantiated proof of recyclability in existing recycling steams and a proof of a collections system in place to divert waste from landfill and include in the recycling stream. The regulations further require LCAs to be conducted by producers and as part of these illustrate a design of the product to facility reuse, recycling, or recovery. The proof of recyclability in existing streams and design for recycling part of LCAs, necessitates a standardised test and definition to guide the industry. The chosen starting point is the CEPI Harmonised methodology developed by 4evergreen in Europe to standardise the testing done between European countries, who all have individual standards and tests for determining paper and paper packaging recyclability. This methodology will be adapted for South African industry through a series of working groups facilitated by Fibre Circle. The working groups include:

• Working group 1 representing the major paper and packaging producers and recyclers, the major brand owners and retailers who require the packaging materials. This working group will also oversee the session of the other working groups as they supply or are supplied by the members of the other working groups.
• Working group 2 representing the pharmaceutical and cosmetics brand owners and the printing and labelling companies
• Working group 3 representing the brand owners of foods
• Working group 4 representing the brand owners of consumer goods, importers of goods and technology
• Working group 5 representing the importers and converters of paper and paper packaging for the South African market

The work will involve testing the repulpability of a broad range of existing paper and paper packaging materials on the market in a market mapping exercise. This will allow the creation of a database to better understand the repulpability of difficult and easy to recycle materials relative to each other. This dataset will be used to modify the CEPI scoring system for local relevance. Furthermore, industry experts on the collection system of recycled paper and paper packaging will review the feasibility of collecting the considered material, which informs the second pillar of recyclability. Therefore, materials which may be deemed repulpable, may not be compatible with the local recycling industry in terms of fibre recovery and or the collection system. This work will be carried out during 2025 with the aim of having a draft document ready in the 4th quarter of 2025. This document will also form the basis of the design for recyclability guidelines to be published by Fibre Circle to assist the industry with designing paper packaging which is recyclable in the South African market. If you wish to participate in the working groups or find out more, please contact us at info@fibrecircle.co.za and direct the enquiry to the Programme and Strategy Enablement office.