Richard Henchley from the PPA’s Environmental Committee outlined to edie the importance of finding alternatives to landfill. “Clearly there is a fair amount of paper that goes into landfill. This study aims to establish exactly what that quantity is, and to improve the entire system. Almost all unsold magazines are recycled. However, post consumer recycling is at full capacity at the moment – we are in need of a major new recycling plant.” Henchley added that this issue is currently being addressed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP).
Various methods will be employed to tackle the issue of waste in the magazine industry, including greater recycling. Currently, recycled paper is used solely in newspaper production.
Increasing the amount of recycling in the industry will not only benefit the environment, but, as a resource, a wealth of recyclable magazines will also be financially beneficial in the long run to the publishers themselves. “The last thing the publishers need is to have old magazines being sold in car boot sales, when they can earn directly from recycling them,” said Henchley.
The new initiative aims to give publishers an advantage when addressing current and emerging environmental legislation. Indeed, the packaging waste regime has been an object lesson on how an industry needs to address such issues early or be saddled with a system which it does not want, Henchley explained.
The study will address EU and UK government environmental policy imperatives, namely management of waste and of depletion of non-renewable and consumption of renewable resources.