Rethinking Deinking - Climb in Digital Printing Puts Pressure on Paper Recycling

Paper recyclers have long dealt with this hodgepodge of paper types. But in recent years, they have faced a new challenge: ink from digital printing presses. Changes in the way some paper is printed have mills concerned that they could be forced to alter how they scrub recovered paper of unwanted ink.

Recyclers’ concerns are still mostly about the future. That’s because analog methods such as offset printing still dominate the newspaper and magazine printing industry, the source of most recycled paper. “By some estimates, more than 95% of the 50 to 60 trillion commercial printed pages are still being printed