Abstract
Rising demands for environmental protection and resource conservation in the recent years have accelerated the creation of a recycling-oriented society, steadily increasing the Japanese waste paper utilization rate to 60% in 2003. Meanwhile, demands of variety functional papers with enhanced moisture resistance have grown as they offer greater convenience to consumers. These functional papers containing used paper cores and tubes raise serious issues to the paper industries as ordinary equipments at mills can not utilize them as regular waste paper. Also, functional papers consume a large amount of electricity at pulping process and most of them are disposed of as industrial waste. The use of such hard-to-recycle waste paper, however, is an issue that must be solved as society expects increased waste paper utilization rate in the future.
Rengo Kanazu mill started its operation in 1961 and currently has two corrugating medium machines. In order to promote waste paper utilization, the mill has been using 100% wastepaper since 1993 for manufacturing of corrugating medium. In order to meet current requirement to utilize hard-to-recycle waste paper, the mill installed a new processing facility for used paper cores and tubes in 2004.
The new facility does not require additional chemicals or heat. Used paper cores and tubes are put into the new facility in `as is’ condition and the output is sent to the regular pulper, and is treated in the same process as regular waste paper.
The final products manufactured in the stated conditions were examined and they showed no negative effects on both table test and real machine test. It is concluded that the facility can be operated without any problems.
