Environmental Benefits

Studies by environmental consultants demonstrate a hierarchy of environmental impacts for alternative treatments of used newspapers and magazines.

  • Recycling to newsprint is better environmentally than incineration to energy, which
    in turn is better than disposal to landfill. Ecco will use approximately one third of the energy to convert its raw material compared to the use of virgin fibre from trees.
  • Newsprint made from recycled fibre uses less energy to produce than
    newsprint made from virgin fibre. Ecco will use approx 1 megawatt of
    electricity to produce 1 tonne of paper, compared to 2.8 megawatts for
    paper made from virgin fibre.
  • Transport distances are reduced both in terms of raw materials and to customers, with a significant saving in fuel consumption. Imported paper has a wide range of transport distance (raw materials and deliveries to customer) typically of several thousand miles. Ecco Newsprint, drawing its raw materials locally, and delivering product to UK has combined transport distances of an average of 150 miles.

Ecco and its suppliers have designed the most efficient production line using best available technology. This enables significant reductions in process water consumption, when compared to older mills, and through the very most modern engineering, ensures that as much of the material sent for recycling is turned into new usable newsprint as possible.

You can see Ecco's ES and planning application by following this link to Redcar & Clevelend Borough Council's website

Environmental Impact Assessment

Which issues were investigated?
By law an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requires a developer to assess and mitigate any potential environmental issues caused by a development during its construction and operation; information gathered through this process is presented in an Environmental Statement (ES) and submitted along with a planning application. The information was considered by Redcar and Cleveland Council along with consultees such as the Environment Agency and the Highways Agency when the planning application was made, and planning consent obtained.