In Japan, around 60% of the raw materials for paper production comes from recovered paper. The recovered paper from households is mainly collected through “community collection” and “administrative collection by local authorities” and utilized for the paper production at the paper mills. Recently, the idea of sustainable paper recycling is becoming more important under the circumstance of growing demand for paper as an alternative material for de-plasticization. The Oji Group produces newsprint, printing paper, and paperboard that contain recovered paper in mills across Japan. Recovered paper collected locally is utilized in mills belonging to the Oji Group, mainly in mills located near the source of material, and contributes to keeping a healthy recovered paper recycling system. For further improvement our recovered paper utilization ratio, the Oji Group challenges to utilize various types of recovered paper and contributes to domestic circular use of resources in Japan.

The Oji Group consumes 3.81 million tons of recovered paper for its production annually. This is equivalent to 24% of 15.70 million tons of the total recovered paper consumed in Japan. The breakdown of recovered paper use is as follows: 57% old corrugated containers, 18% old magazines, and 16% old newspaper. The recovered paper utilization ratio^*1 continues to increase year on year as the use of recovered paper expands. In recent years, The decline in printing paper production has been greater than the increase of paperboard, whose recovered paper utilization ratio is higher, and changes in the paper product variety composition have pushed up the overall recovered paper utilization ratio. While the ratio was 67.1% in FY2021, it rose to 67.6% in FY2022 due to a decrease in printing paper production and an increase in paperboard production.
The Oji Group has maintained a high recovered paper utilization ratio by continuously working on the recycling of various types of recovered paper. Since FY2021, we have been working to further expantion the use of recovered paper with the aim of achieving a recovered paper utilization ratio of 70% or more (in Japan) under the Environmental Action Program 2030.

• *1Recovered paper utilization ratio = Volume of recovered paper consumed ÷ Total volume of fiber raw materials consumed (total consumption of recovered paper, wood pulp, and others)

The Oji Group produces a diverse range of products, including newsprint, printing paper and paperboard, and uses various types of recovered paper, including old newspapers, old magazines and old corrugated containers. The relationship between the main types of recovered paper and the products that use recovered paper is shown in the diagram. The Oji Group is also involved in recycling confidential documents that were previously often incinerated, difficult-to-process recovered paper that were unsuitable for paper recycling, such as plastic-laminated products , and paper that contains gold and silver.
The Group has started to create a recycling system for paper cups and other paper which are attracting attention for expanding recycling, and promote recycling as a raw material for paperboard.

Foreign materials other than paper mixed in with recovered paper, or ink from specially printed or processed paper, can cause color spots and surface swelling of paper products, resulting in quality problems. These contaminants are collectively referred to as prohibited materials. The Oji Group cooperates with recovered paper recyclers and the Paper Recycling Promotion Center to engage in awareness campaigns targeting local authorities, schools and businesses to prevent prohibited materials from commingling.

The sorted collection of recyclables in New Zealand is not as developed as it is in Japan, so all recyclables are basically collected in a recycle bin. For this reason, it is essential to build a system for collecting only recovered paper in order to efficiently collect high-quality recovered paper with low contamination. Oji Fibre Solutions (Oji FS) is the New Zealand’s largest user of recovered paper and the only containerboard manufacturer in the country. For our own recovered paper collection business, Oji FS boasts the fact that the amount of recovered paper collected exceeds not only the company’s own consumption but also total domestic consumption.
With 13 baling sites (to compress and pack recovered paper into large cubes weighing about 1 ton each), Oji FS collected about 240,000 tons of recovered paper in 2022. The surplus exceeding its own consumption is exported overseas, mostly to the Oji Group company GSPP (Malaysia). Since Oji FS efforts are directly linked to the improvement of the national recovered paper recycling rate, the company is actively engaged in activities to improve recovered paper collection and the recovered paper utilization rate, such as considering a nation-wide collection system together with the government and developing paperboard products with an increased recovered paper content.

GSPP manufactures containerboard base paper made from recovered paper and has significantly increased its production capacity in 2021. In 2022, in addition to approximately 370,000 tons of Malaysian domestic recovered paper from the affiliated collection and sorting facilities, GSPP imports recovered paper from outside Malaysia, including New Zealand and Japan.

GSPP is working to improve the quality of recovered paper in Malaysia, mainly with the affiliated collection and sorting facilities.
Moreover, GSPP is conducting awareness campaign targeting general public to further promote recovered paper recycling.
Photograph on the right below shows the sorting bins donated to welfare facilities by GSPP in conjunction with the Embassy of Japan in Malaysia.
Bins are designed to raise awareness of recycling by enabling separate disposal of paper, plastics and cloth.