ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Used paper towels are being collected from washrooms and recycled into new tissue products under a scheme being trialled by by SCA.

The company has teamed up with various local partners to implement the scheme, which is being piloted in Germany and the Netherlands. Used Tork hand towels are collected from office washrooms and then recycled locally at SCA mills.

"It is estimated that hand towels make up around 10 to 25 per cent of the total waste in many offices," says Åsa Degerman from the Tork waste-to-resource innovation team. "As a result, customers are requesting sustainable solutions for hand towels as part of their larger waste-reduction goals - and this is driving the demand for this type of service.

"Currently the most frequently-used disposal methods for paper hand towels are incineration, landfill and in some cases composting. There has been no recycling whatsoever until now so the potential for using natural resources more than once is huge."

She adds that the success of the service depends entirely on co-operation between customers, facility service providers and SCA tissue mills along with other agencies in the waste management and tissue production value chains. "They all need to be involved to make it work," she said.

Customer response to the initiative has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.
"They are very satisfied with the outcome and consider it to be a hassle-free service that hasn't increased the workload for their cleaners," said Degerman.

Tork aims to further improve the service during 2017.