GH Packaging is proud to say all of its paper cups are recyclable

How is paper recycled?

A number of different types of paper - newspapers, shopping boxes and even scribb lin g pads - can be recycled.

The better quality paper collected, the higher the quality of the recycled paper that is produced.

Items such as staples, sticky tape, glue, plastic, metal clips and food must be taken out before the paper is recycled.

Following sorting, recycled paper is squeezed together to form big blocks of paper.

At a paper mill, the waste paper is mixed with water in a machine like a washing machine. In this process, between 10% and 30% of the waste paper's volume is lost because the paper is made up of fillers and other materials like clay that are absorbed in water.

For some products, the ink on the paper must be washed off. In this process, a slush of paper and water is mixed with a detergent and air to form a froth on the top of the mixture (like bubbles in a bubble bath).

This froth is skimmed off and the mix is ready to go into the paper machine before it can be dried and made into new paper.

Waste paper can be recycled about anywhere between five to 10 times. You can’t recycle the same piece of paper forever, because the fibres break down and cannot form a strong enough "web" to make paper.

What are the benefits to the environment from recyc lin g paper?

The main environmental benefit from recyc lin g is the lower volume of rubbish going to tips.

In some circumstances, recyc lin g can reduce the amount of electricity used in making paper, and therefore the amount of greenhouse gases emitted.

Since recyc lin g mainly replaces fibres from trees grown in plantations ("virgin fibre ") or waste from other timber harvesting, it reduces the impact on the logging of Australia 's native forests.