Brussels — Every two years the European Paper Recycling Council (EPRC) rewards the best, brightest and most innovative paper recycling projects from across the continent with the prestigious European Paper Recycling Award. This year’s award ceremony, which took place on 18 October, was jointly hosted by MEP Simona Bonafè (Italy), rapporteur of the Circular Economy dossier and Inés Ayala Sende (Spain).
Favini, a leading global producer of packaging for the luxury and fashion industries, topped the Innovative Technologies and R&D category for its Remake project, a ground-breaking process of using recycled leather to produce paper. Aspapel, the Spanish pulp & paper association headed up the Information and Education category with its creative ‘Blue Birdies’ project targeted towards raising awareness on the separate collection of paper across municipalities in Spain.
“Today’s winners are the pioneers that are paving the way the European paper recycling value chain is advancing paper recycling to the next level”, commented Lisa Kretschmann, Chairperson of the EPRC. “Whether it be inventive companies or municipalities willing to ‘step outside the box’, their role is crucial in helping the value chain reach its 74 percent recycling rate by 2020”, explained Ulrich Leberle, Secretary of the EPRC/Raw Materials Director at CEPI.
These two projects stood out from the crowd in terms of their originality, innovativeness, measured achievement and ability to be reproduced across Europe. Other commended entries which also scored highly include:
Innovative Technologies and R&D category:
- IMPACTPapeRec, a Horizon 2020 funded project on boosting separate collection of paper
- Comieco’s (Italy) online contest “#iorompolescatole” (in English: “I break boxes”) on raising awareness of recycling paper & board packaging from e-commerce
- SCA’s Circular Economy project entitled “Closing the loop for paper hand towels”
Information and Education category:
- Lucart (Italy): separating cellulose from beverage cartons to be reused for tissue production
- Paptic (Finland): a light & durable material based on renewable and recyclable wood fibres
More information on the winners can be found under paperforrecycling.eu.
Source: Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI)
