Tokyo, July 1, 2002 - Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd., Japan's leading pulp and paper manufacturing company and a member of the Nippon Unipac Holding Group, announced that it has established proprietary technology that allows old magazine to be used as raw material for recycled paper products - something previously impossible. Nippon Paper Industries is currently implementing related equipment and technologies at each of its mills, and will launch commercial operation of manufacturing equipment at its Yufutsu Mill (located in Tomakomai City, Hokkaido) on July 1 capable of producing de-inked pulp (DIP) made from 100% old magazine. The equipment will be the first of its kind in Japan.

 

To date Nippon Paper Industries has advocated the promotion of wastepaper use in its action guideline "the Nippon Paper Industries' Environmental Charter" and has been working on the following two initiatives;

1) Achieve a DIP mixture of 70% for newsprint.

2) Expand the use of wastepaper from fine paper as well as from magazines.

 

The cutting-edge DIP manufacturing equipment installed at the Yufutsu Mill boasts a daily output of 110 tons and was made possible via capital investment of approximately 1.5 billion yen. As a result, the Mill's production capacity for de-inked pulp will be beefed up from the current 230 tons per day to 340 tons per day, and will make it possible to boost the maximum de-inked pulp ratio for newsprint to as high as 80%. By expanding production facilities for DIP at the Yufutsu Mill and other Mills, Nippon Paper Industries is forecasting to be able to achieve an average de-inked pulp ratio of 75% for newsprint.

 

When using wastepaper as raw material in the manufacture of paper products, the biggest hurdle has been coming up with technology to remove and extract foreign substances. The percentage of these substances contained in waste newsprint (old newspapers and inserts)-in a typical example of wastepaper-is relatively low and it therefore has been widely used by many paper manufacturers in theindustry. Yet, despite there being magazine collection systems in place in Japan that are primarily run by local governments and other organizations, waste magazine paper has so far not been used to make recycled paper products - except for paperboard - since it has been extremely difficult to remove adhesives from magazine spines, as well as stickers and labels.

 

Nippon Paper Industries had been earnestly working on the development of technology that would allow collected waste magazine paper to be used as raw material in the manufacture of recycled paper products, and was able to establish this pioneering technology ahead of other companies in the industry. This achievement will not only allow current social needs related to the recycling of wastepaper to be met. But it is also expected to help Nippon Paper Industries with cost-reduction initiatives via the procurement of cheaper-priced raw materials (i.e. used magazines) for manufacturing paper.

 

Furthermore, regarding wastepaper from woodfree paper, Nippon Paper Industries has its sights set on the development of technology to utilize wastepaper from bookbinding and printing companies in the manufacture of paper, including inferior grades of wastepaper previously not used in these processes (in addition to fine quality wastepaper containing a low amount of foreign substances currently used so far). The same will also be promoted for wastepaper collected from offices for which removal of toner and foreign substances had previously been difficult. Nippon Paper Industries also aims to further enhance and improve DIP manufacturing technology for newsprint, as well as for printing paper and communication paper.