Recyclability of release paper

There is a need to increase the recovered paper utilisation rate. One available fibre source would be release papers, if the silicone coating can be removed in normal deinking process because it impairs the quality of a printed surface. There is no publication concerning release paper recycling in the normal household paper stream. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the recyclability of release paper and if silicone removal is sufficient in normal deinking process. The evaluation was based on pulping and flotation behaviour of release paper combined with ONP/OMG mix (old news paper/old magazine). The removal of silicone coating for producing applicable pulp for wood containing papers was evaluated by flatbed scanner of dyed sheets and by strength and printability properties. The results showed that pulping and flotation were not affected notably by the usage of release paper share being as high as 10%. Silicone was removed efficiently in the flotation stage and strength properties were even higher than that of ONP/OMG- mix. The printability of the paper was not significantly changed by the 10% release paper addition. In a real case, the share of release paper would be much lower and therefore release paper can be recycled within collected papers