Three new newsprint mills are planned for the U.K., all using recycled fibre. This begs the questions: 1) Is there a market for all the production; 2) Is there going to be enough raw material (old and over-issue newspapers and magazines) for the P.C.W. fibre needed to feed these mills?
Who are the contenders? AYLESFORD NEWSPRINT want to build a new machine at their site near Maidstone in Kent where they currently produce approx. 400,000 tonnes of Renaissance brand newsprint on two machines, and it is Aylesford’s intention that a new ‘state-of-the-art’ machine will replace the aging PM13 which at 5.4metres wide and a run-speed of 900M per minute, is dwarfed by the newer PM14’s 9.4M width and 1680M per minute (roughly 68 miles per hour!). That makes a whole lot of sense to this author anyway. Overall, Aylesford’s proud boast is that they currently, at 400KT produce 1% of the World’s newsprint, and 4% of the European requirement, yet the U.K. as a nation still imports 60% of its newsprint requirement.
Ramsey Hampton, doyen of Aylesford Newsprint’s ‘new’ mill and machine back in the 1990’s, now heads-up a team called ECCO who plan to build a 400KT recycled newsprint mill in Geordieland, and has recently signed the lease for 125 years use of land for the mill and related infrastructure. Mr. Hampton, a thoroughly nice fellow, has a habit of making things happen, and there is no doubt that the new mill will be a great success. The North-East of England is crying-out for redevelopment, and the area has a huge population to provide the workforce and the raw materials (waste and over-issue news & magazines) needed for this exciting adventure.
Not so ‘home grown’, German paper maker Palm Paper have obtained planning permission for their anticipated 400KT mill at Kings Lynn in Norfolk, on the site of an old sugar beet factory, and subject to a European recession (when America sneezes Europe catches a cold) the mill is very likely to go ahead.
But the figures quoted above, which will add over a million tonnes of recycled newsprint to the U.K.’s current production of 1.1 million tonnes, may make the U.K. self-sufficient in newsprint (current demand estimated at 2.3 million tonnes), but taking Palm’s mill/machine as an example, to produce 550,000 of fully recycled newsprint, you need to pour in to the other end of the system 630,000 tonnes of ‘waste’ paper. Do we have an additional one-and-a-quarter million tonnes of waste and over-issue news and magazines available to feed these 3 new mills?
This subject is to be continued………
