The paradox of Italy: it exports the paper it recycles, but then buys it back

Our country exports 1.73 million tonnes of paper for recycling, a quarter of that collected from Italian citizens and businesses and the equivalent of more than 60 thousand medium-sized containers. But the same materials exported are those that are then reintroduced into Italy in the form of purchased finished products. A paradox - revealed by a report by Ambiente Italia produced for Assocarta on the occasion of its Public Assembly - that derives from the imbalance between the growth of domestic collection and the absorption capacity of the national paper industry, on which factors such as rising energy costs are hitting.

In 2024, the paper industry recorded an overall recovery in demand (+6.2%) and production (+7.8%) indicators, against a turnover of €8.3 billion (+1.5%) generated by 19 thousand direct employees in 151 paper mills. But imports also grew by 12.7%, satisfying over 54% of domestic demand, confirming a loss of competitiveness on the domestic market for domestic products. And after two years of contraction, foreign demand is growing again, up 11.2% over 2023, with exports mostly directed to France, Germany and Spain, especially for packaging papers and boards (+15.4%). The Italian paper industry has experienced - especially in the last five years - a strong growth in the rate of reuse of paper for recycling (understood as pre- and post-consumer paper waste) in domestic production, which rose from an average of 55% between 2010 and 2019 to an average of 64% between 2020 and 2024 (with a peak of 67% in 2023). Nonetheless, the quantities exported and not used by the domestic paper industry remain significant (an annual average of 1.73 million tonnes over the period 2020-2024) and represent, on average 2020-24, 21% of domestic paper production and just under 25% of domestic collection.

In order to secure the Italian paper industry in this uncertain political-economic context, we need a 'Paper Industrial Deal', i.e. 'a decalogue of ten issues' on which action must be taken. This was explained by Assocarta president Lorenzo Poli during the association's public assembly in Rome today. The objectives illustrated by Poli range from measures to reduce gas prices to those to protect indoor air quality through innovative drying systems, passing through decarbonisation, energy efficiency and support for circular transition and proximity recycling. "Today we suffer a lot from neighbouring countries", namely "Germany, France and Spain", which experience fewer problems such as the cost of energy, which instead in Italy weighs heavily on an energy-intensive sector such as paper.

"Ours is a sector that gives certainties: that of 151 mills that have been producing paper for years, and not one has been closed in recent years," continued Poli. "Italian paper has a certainty in the resilience of the sector, which is no longer second in Europe because last year we became third, but on the sustainability of the material" and circularity exceeds "every parameter". "We are an industry that fails to interpret the cost requirements that are needed to be competitive. We see an extremely flourishing market, full of initiatives and new situations to be interpreted, but then we see the difficulty of our mills to keep up with foreign competitiveness,' said the Assocarta president.