Recycling at the highest level
Almost 58.7 million tonnes of paper are collected and recycled in Europe. This corresponds to a recycling rate of 72% (2019). In Austria, around 1.5 million tonnes of waste paper are collected each year, which corresponds to a recycling rate of 77.6% (2019). The industry uses a total of 2.6 million tonnes of waste paper for the production of new paper products, which is considerably more than can be collected domestically. A large quantity must therefore be imported, namely 1.5 million tonnes. On the other hand, trading companies export 300,000 tonnes of recovered paper. An increase in the recycling rate to over 80 % is hardly possible any more for reasons of technical feasibility. The limiting fractions in paper recycling are mainly heavily soiled or coated papers, such as hygiene products, greasy paper or wallpaper, and of course also products made of paper that are stored for a long time, such as books or important documents.