Royal Mail is implementing an environmental strategy for the printed matter it handles, including a series of recommendations and requirements for how a direct mail piece, door drop, magazine or catalogue is printed in order to be considered recyclable.
This means there is no place for HP Indigo printed jobs and that inkjet printed products will need to prove that they can be recycled after collection at the kerbside. This is one of a series of measures that Royal Mail is taking to makes its business more sustainable and to reach net zero goals.
The revised strategy came into force at the start of the year and is aimed at advertising, publishing and business mailings that provide the bulk of the post that it carries. “We want our customers to mail sustainably so we have created new Environmental Guidance that we are encouraging customers using our Advertising Mail, Business Mail, Publishing Mail and Subscription Mail products to follow from 4 January 2022,” the business says.
The guidance sets out a series of dos and don’ts in order to encourage customers to create products that can be recycled and will not cause problems in waste streams as opposed to being excluded from kerbside collections. This includes almost all film wraps, flexo and aqueous inkjet print and anything that has been printed with ElectroInks using an HP Indigo press. A spokesman for Royal Mail says this is because “HP Indigo (Electroink) is a problem in the deinking process as even in small amounts it can cause visible optical defects (dirt specks in recycled paper).”
This reflects findings by Ingede, the association for the deinking industry and one of the organisations engaged with by Royal Mail when producing the documentation. The Royal Mail did not contact HP Indigo.
However, HP Indigo, following queries from Print Business, has been in contact with Royal Mail. A spokesman says: “As a leading printing equipment and supplies company, HP Indigo cares a great deal about the ease of recycling paper and print media. HP Indigo prints can be recycled into many useful fibre based materials. Some recycling applications also require deinking, and HP Indigo prints can be deinked in relevant recycling applications that require ink removal. We have been in touch with Royal Mail and have made them aware of our certifications and standards.”
Ingede has pointed out that according to its Method 11 process, heavy coverage HP Indigo presses are not suitable for recycling into graphics papers. In 2010 20 tonnes of recycled paper were rendered unsuitable when the recycling mill failed to prevent a large influx of Indigo paper from a major photobook printer, causing significant damage, says Ingede. Since then no further incidents have been recorded.
As well as consulting Ingede, “Royal Mail’s product team engaged with a number of suppliers to develop the guidance which promotes recycling (kerbside collections) and the use of sustainable and recyclable materials” according to a spokesman. These are listed as Wrap, the On-Pack Recycling Logo, Confederation of Paper Industries, the British Plastic Federation, British Sealants and Adhesives Association. The likes of the PPA’s Sustainability Action Group, Wholesale Access Group, the PPA, and Strategic Mailing Partnership also contributed.
The Environmental Guidance draws extensively on the PPA’s Deinking and recycling guidelines for magazines, published in July 2019 with similar warnings about the use of water based inkjet inks which can cause ‘red sock syndrome’, and hard to recycle finishes like lamination and UV coatings.
A growing number of PPA publishers are members of the On Pack Recycling scheme, using a logo to show whether the plastic wrap can be recycled and if so, how.
The Royal Mail wants to encourage customers away from the use of plastic film wrap, excessive use of foil and to eliminate cover mounts. In the guidelines there are recommendations on which glues are acceptable and which varnishes are encouraged. Pressure sensitive hot melt adhesives are not deinkable and are consequently banned, likewise water soluble glues. PUR and conventional hot melts receive a green light.
Foil should be less than 30% of the area of a page and lamination is restricted to single-sided applications, though discouraged overall.
Indigo is not the only printing technology mentioned. Water based flexo and aqueous inkjet inks using either dyes or pigments are ruled out, because these can contaminate the deinking process like a coloured sock in a white wash – the red sock syndrome. Inkjet inks are only allowed if “evidence can be provided that they can be deinked in standard deinking plants”. There is little hard information about this.
Film wraps are not banned but a polywrap needs to be easily identifiable as recyclable and can be recycled by citizens through normal kerbside waste collections. Currently this could rule out LDPE which is not extensively collected for recycling by local authorities.
The rules permit the use of non biodegradable plastics and both bio derived and fossil fuel derived conventional plastics. “All plastics whether fossil or bio based which are designed to biodegrade or be compostable are excluded because of the restricted opportunity for citizens to recycle and the propensity for these plastics to enter, and contaminate, standard plastic recycling streams,” says the guidance.
This means a veto on plastics that are described as biodegradable, non biodegradable but compostable plastics and other starch derived plastics that are designed to biodegrade. A wrapper needs to carry clear information that the wrap can be recycled using commonly understood and used logotypes, deemed to be from members of the On Pack Recycling scheme.
Paper used in envelopes and wraps needs to come from certified sources and from a mill with a recognised environmental management system. Papers with a laminated PLA layer are banned. Paper production must not use a chlorinated bleach. This requirement at least is not onerous. Almost all papers available in Europe will be compliant and meet the requirements too in terms of sourced from certified forests. However, non traditional fibre sources, ‘bagasse, palm fibre, rice straw, wheat straw, barley straw, oats straw and other plant fibres”, are not permitted in production.
The Royal Mail is stressing that this is guidance, at least for the moment. The guidance was first published in August last year and discussed by the Strategic Mailing Partnership where chair Judith Donovan has welcomed the introduction. “I believe the new Royal Mail environmental guidance highlights a logical step forward for the print industry in their efforts to become more sustainable and meet the evolving needs of end brands,” she says.
“The SMP has had extensive discussions with Royal Mail for some time prior to the guidance being finalised and announced, as they were keen to use and continue to use our expertise in the industry to help shape and evolve mail’s sustainability position to make sure it meets the needs of customers and the overall sector.”
The new guidance replaces the sustainable advertising mail scheme which offered discounts to mailed items that complied with the environmental guidelines that were then current, extending this to subscriptions and publishing discounts. Ultimately the Royal Mail might withdraw discounts from mailed items that do not comply with the guidance. That is for the future.
Royal Mail points out “that we are not mandating for customers to adopt the specifications within the guidance”. However, the document lands at a time that the organisation is setting course to achieve net zero by 2050, to cut waste generated and water used by 25% by 2030, using a total review of purchase, distribution use and the disposal of packaging and single-use resources by 2022 as well as to convert its entire fleet to renewable fuels by 2050 – if not sooner.
Donovan adds: “It is vital to understand and relay the importance of sustainability. This is something we at SMP and the Royal Mail are both passionate about and are continuing to work on. I believe this guidance is an important stepping stone and through the continued implementation of sustainable and fully recyclable materials for packaging, which can be recycled through kerbside collections, the mail channel will meet its commitments to the goals of Adnet Zero.”
Despite the engagement with Royal Mail, some of the clauses have come as a surprise to those from print that are part of SMP, while printers outside the framework had no awareness that the guidance had been published, let alone that its recommendations are potentially far reaching for the industry. While printers are using their HP Indigos for short run work, this can easily exceed 1,000 copies of personalised material which would fall foul of the new recommendations.
“Royal Mail has changed the two-level sustainability discount for advertising mail into a single level of discount now, which I understand you will not get if you are using UV,” says Go Inspire chief executive Pat Headley. “You can’t mix paper and plastics. It’s about being aligned with public opinion. At the end of the day this is the right thing to do.”
Now, says Donovan, the need is to make printers and users of mail aware of the changes. “With this guidance coming into effect this week, the SMP is currently working together with Royal Mail to develop a best practice guide, to help our clients and industry stakeholders implement new, sustainable practices moving forward.”
