Europe's recycled paper usage rate remained stable in 2014: CEPI

BRUSSELS (Scrap Monster): The recent data released by the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) indicates that the use of recycled paper by paper manufacturers in Europe has remained stable.

The Preliminary Statistics 2014 released by CEPI shows that paper usage for recycling by its members remained flat at 47.5 million tonnes in 2014 when matched with the previous year. The demand from graphic paper sector fell sharply. Meanwhile, packaging paper and board sector witnessed growth.

Paper and board production by CEPI member countries fell slightly, by around 0.2% in 2014 according to preliminary figures. Total production in 2014 was around 91 million tonnes.

Weak printing and publishing activity continued to adversely affect the overall production of graphic grades, whose production fell 3% over 2013. The newsprint paper output is estimated to fall by around 7% during the year. The output of uncoated mechanical grades too has declined by 3.5%. Also, the output of coated mechanical grades fell by 5.2%. On the contrary, production of uncoated woodfree grades has improved marginally by 1.2%.

The total paper and board deliveries during the initial three quarters of 2014 have declined marginally between 0.5% and 1.0% when compared with deliveries during January to September in 2013. The deliveries of graphic grades have decreased by 3.3% during this period, whereas deliveries of packaging grades rose by 2.5%.

The total production of packaging grades is estimated to have increased by nearly 1.9% when compared with 2013.