AF&PA Urges Chinese Authorities to Keep an Open Market for Recovered Paper Imports

Vancouver-based environmental group, Canopy, has launched a global campaign against paper packaging, claiming that three billion trees “disappear into packaging’’ every year leaving “a trail of deforestation, degraded forest systems, threatened species, and an increasingly volatile climate.” Strong words. But are they true? Not as far as Canada is concerned (and probably the US too). For a Vancouver-based group, Canopy is alarmingly ignorant of the packaging facts in Canada. Here’s one. Most of the paper packaging material made by Canadian mills is 100% recycled content! It’s not made (as Canopy claims) with the “habitat of endangered species such as orangutans or caribou.” There’s a lesson here for brand owners everywhere. We commend you for committing to environmental causes. But please, please do not allow yourselves to be publicly embarrassed by lending your names and credibility to the false and misleading claims such as Canopy makes above. Facts do matter.

The Czech Forest Certification System and the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) have successfully achieved PEFC re-endorsement, confirming they continue to meet our globally recognized Sustainability Benchmarks. Launched in 1941, ATFS is one of the oldest initiatives for certifying sustainable forestry in the world. It now represents 74,000 tree farmers sustainably managing more than 7.5 million hectares of PEFC-certified forestland. ATFS first achieved PEFC endorsement in 2008, with subsequent re-endorsements in 2013 and now 2017. The Czech Republic, one of the 11 original national members of PEFC, first achieved PEFC endorsement of their forest certification system back in 2002. This was followed by three more successful endorsements in 2006, 2012 and 2017. In this time, more than 1.8 million hectares of forest have achieved PEFC certification, equaling more than two thirds of the country’s forest area. Click Read More below for additional information.

The heating plant is located on Vattenfall’s existing combined heat and power plant site in Uppsala, Sweden, some 70 km north of Stockholm. This new plant supplies more than 110 MW of district heat to the Uppsala area and is also prepared for electricity production at a later stage. The fuel for the new plant comprises different kinds of wood-based biomass, such as recycled wood, bark, wood chips, and sawdust. The ANDRITZ scope of supply included biomass receiving, handling and storage silos, a biomass-fired boiler with flue gas cleaning, and a flue gas condenser. The boiler is based on the ANDRITZ EcoFluid bubbling fluidized bed design, which combines high efficiency with excellent environmental performance. Flue gas emissions are reduced to very low levels, with the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) method for NOx emissions and a baghouse filter, including sorbent feeding, for sulfur dioxide (SO2), hydrochloric acid (HCl), heavy metals, and dust emissions. The flue gas condenser significantly increases the district heat output and, therefore, improves plant efficiency to beyond 110% when calculated using the fuel lower heating value.