Last year, UK paper mills produced roughly 4.3m tonnes of board and paper. Although these numbers indicated a 14% drop from figures in 2008, the trend over the last five years has shown that paper production across the UK has been dropping steadily. In all the paper packaging industry has dropped in production by 31% since 2004.
However, industry officials are arguing that the industry was struggling before the recession hit, and in some cases, according to Andrew Barneston, corrugated sector manager for Confederation of Paper Industries, this made the industry more prepared to handle the economic downturn.
It seems that now that the economy is over the worst of its recession woes, that the paper packaging industry may be on the rise once again. With the new DS Smith’s Kemsley mill being built in Kent, and the SAICA investment in a new facility in Manchester, the industry in the UK could be picking up.
The two new facilities will bring a needed new UK capacity to the industry as well as incorporate new state-of-the-art machines to enable the UK to turn out some of the most cutting edge products today. These include new lighter-weight materials and more recyclable and recycled paper products.
Currently, says CPI’s Andrew Barneston, 90% of raw materials used are gleaned from recycled products such as recovered fibre. He adds that with the capacity of new paper being increased, the industries ability to recycle domestically is also increasing.
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