Publishers, state sign recycling agreement

AUGUSTA — Maine daily newspaper publishers and state officials on Wednesday signed a voluntary agreement for Maine newspapers to use 25 percent recycled newsprint by the end of 1993, and 40 percent recycled newsprint by the end of 1995.

The agreement is conditioned on the availability to publishers of acceptable quality recycled newsprint at competitive prices. It also says that publishers will seek long-term contracts for newsprint made partly from recycled fiber, preferably 40 percent recycled fiber.

Until now, recycled newsprint has not been available to Maine newspapers, except on the spot market.

Plans to build de-inking mills, including a plant proposed by Georgia-Pacific Corp. for East Millinocket, helped spur the voluntary agreement modeled after similar agreements in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

“All of us know more now than we did a year ago about how to get this done,” John R. Hooper, vice president for newspapers at Guy Gannett Publishing Co. in Portland, told reporters Wednesday.

A bill that would have required Maine newspapers to use an increasing percentage of recycled newsprint was killed in this year’s legislative session.

Hooper said the bill pushed by the Natural Resources Council of Maine had done little but gain the attention of Maine newspapers.

But he said, “The voluntary agreement is achievable.”

Besides the proposed G-P de-inking plant, Irving Paper of Canada also is considering building a plant to recycle old newspaper into fresh newsprint. Georgia-Pacific is the only Maine manufacturer of newsprint and supplies 35 to 40 percent of newsprint used in Maine. Almost all the rest is made in Canada.

Hooper said the agreement by the Maine Daily Newspaper Publishers Association put Maine newspapers “in position to effect a positive change to reduce the stream of old newspapers to our landfills.”

He said he didn’t expect much recycled newsprint to be available until 1994, but by 1995, assuming G-P gets permission to build its de-inking plant, there probably won’t be enough old newspapers in Maine to supply the mill.

“We need to keep our sights on mid-decade,” he said. “We should not lose patience over the next two to three years.”

Nationally, about 35 percent of old newspapers get recycled, but most are turned into products like fiberboard, animal bedding, other kinds of paper and insulation. Most old newspapers wind up in landfills or incinerators.

At the time of last winter’s legislative hearing, there were only eight plants in the United States and Canada recycling old newspapers into new newsprint, and the nearest plants to Maine were in New Jersey and Ontario.

Sherry F. Huber, executive director of the Maine Waste Management Agency, praised the agreement, saying, “The publishers have sent a very clear signal to their suppliers.”

The daily newspapers in Maine use about 37,000 tons of newsprint each year.

Huber said newspapers comprised about 5 percent of Maine’s solid-waste stream and that in 1988, about 5,000 tons of old newspapers were recycled.

Both Huber and Hooper said until recycling facilities were built, the collection of old newspapers would probably outpace market demand, and some newspapers collected for recycling would have to be either burned or buried.

The publishers of daily papers who agreed to the recycling pact were Dennis Flaherty, Alta Group Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Journal Tribune and Journal Tribune Weekend; Richard K. Warren, Bangor Publishing Co., publisher of the Bangor Daily News and Maine Weekend; John R. Hooper, Guy Gannett Publishing Co., publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Portland Evening Express, Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal, Kennebec Journal Weekend, Morning Sentinel and Morning Sentinel Weekend; James Costello, Lewiston Sun-Journal Sunday, publisher of the Lewiston Sun-Journal and Sunday; and Campbell Niven, The Times Record, publisher of the Bath-Brunswick Times Record.