paper recycling - yellow pages

[Mattk]

i took a load of old papers to the paperbank today and noticed that you cannot throw your yellow pages in.

anyone know why ? is it because the paper cannot be recycled ?

surely these are recyclable - i just need to know where can i take them to be recycled

[Philtaz]

I agree.  I like to think I do my bit when it comes to recycling and have often felt guilty putting the old Yellow Pages in the bin.  It's the same with things like Argos catalogues etc.  The waste paper collector who tours the estate won't take them so I drop them in the recycle bin when I'm in Sainsbury's car park.

Do they recycle them or not?(Yellow Pages and catalogues that is).

[booksworth]

There used to be a problem with the yellow dye, but I thought YP had changed the chemicals to get around it. Ask YP about recycling - they may have something useful to say.

[stevie21]

I read a long time ago that shiny paper like Argos catalogues and certain magazines can't be recycled - I'm sure I read this in one of these magazines.

[Lindy Loo]

We are very lucky. The council arranges a fortnightly door to door collection my borough and any paper/cardboard is accepted.

 

Check out with your local council what is accepted these days as the some of the 'paperbank' containers are quite old and the YES  PLEASE / NO THANKS signs may not be upto date.

[Mattk]

cheers guys

[Solarjunkie]

It's the glue that the recycling machines can't cope with.

So if you can be bothered to tear all the pages out, burn the spine & recycle the pages.

[hartley]

It all depends on the paper merchant who is collecting and/or recycling the paper.

Normal paper bleaching is designed to remove ink printed onto white paper. The fibre in the pages in the YP used to be dyed yellow meaning that normal bleaching of paper would not remove the colour, just the printing. This would mean that a batch of paper could be contaminated by a few YPs and newspapers could have small yellow flecks in for days. Recently Yell have started making the pages from white paper over-printed with yellow ink, you can tell by tearing a bit of a page - if you look closely you should see the white fibres. This makes them easier to bleach making newer books technically recyclable. Many merchants however refuse to accept them with general paper recycling because the paper used in YPs is of a quite low quality to start off with and doesn't make good recycled paper.

Some reprocessors will take the books but this tends to get recycled into cardboards, brown paper etc where colour and fibre length matter less. Some merchants accept yellow pages, remove the spines and shred the pages for use as animal bedding.

As Lindy Loo says, it's probably best to check with your local council's waste management dept. regarding glossy magazines/catalogues. Again, it is certainly possible to recycle these but firms buying the paper may specify that they don't want them due to the types of paper they are manufacturing. For example, some reprocessors who make high quality papers demand that they only receive waste paper from offices, meaning most of their feedstock will be white office paper with black, easily removed ink.