Paper Recycling In Canada

This paper aims to evaluate the availability and suitability of waste paper for conversion to biofuel and to look generally at environmental impacts of processing waste paper. It starts by providing data on waste paper quantities by paper type for each province or territory. Next, it gives a detailed analysis of the variation of prices by paper type and future price projections. The major practices of waste disposal, recycling, conversion and landfilling are discussed and the quantities of waste paper which would not be available for recycling due to technical and practical constraints are estimated. The feasibility of using waste paper as feedstock for each of 3 conversion processes is discussed and then scenarios are developed for different recycling rates and conversion options. Environmental impacts of these scenarios are described and emission factors for each utilization or disposal process are discussed. The emission factors are next applied to quantities of waste paper for each of the scenarios and results are discussed. The document ends with conclusions and recommendations for future work.