Is Deinking Environmentally Desirable?, 1994 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Neil McCubbin, Jens Folke

The use of secondary fibers has been actively promoted by many environmental advocacy groups, and by government agencies, on the rationale that recycling saves trees and reduces the volume of the municipal solid waste stream. Some regulations and many recycle programs operate on the principle that the secondary fibers should be recycled to manufacture products similar to their origin. This requires deinking of newsprint, printing and office wastes.

This paper analyzes fiber supply in a holistic perspective, and suggests that in the life cycle of fiber, it should enter the economy as a bleached kraft or mechanical pulp, and after consumer use be recycled to packaging or similar non-white grades of paper.

It is suggested that operations such as deinking for manufacture of white papers, and the manufacture of packaging from virgin fiber may not be ecologically sound when analyzed holistically. In some cases it may be environmentally preferable to use recovered waste paper as fuel rather than recycle it to manufacture paper.