Helsinki, Finland, 28 September 2011 -- UPM and Vertaris have teamed up to develop a sustainable release liner recycling concept in Europe in the spring. The co-operation of UPM and Vertaris provides a more sustainable solution to recycle the used liner back into pulp and paper. Today, the majority of the used siliconized liner is mainly incinerated.

Vertaris developed a technology for desiliconizing paper-based release liner at their plant in Voreppe, France. The recycled liners will be processed into pulp at Vertaris’ plant, and the pulp will be used in paper production at UPM’s paper mills in Europe.

“After the announcement in April there have been various service requests from the label end users and UPM’s direct customers for the collection of liner. UPM’s extensive recovered paper sourcing organisation is now at the stage of contracting the recycled liner volumes all across the Europe,“ said Marko Haveri, UPM portfolio manager of Business Development in Fine & Speciality Papers and Paper Products, R&D.

“We have a proven technology for making paper out of the recycled liner for fine and speciality paper end uses,” Haveri said. “We see that this concept fits perfectly to our Biofore strategy to promote the sustainable use of biomass. We have mobilized our strong sales network, extensive recovered paper sourcing organization, and our partners in both logistics and recycled liner processing to support the whole value chain with this initiative.”

UPM has 25 modern and sustainable paper mills in Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, China, and the United States. Many of them are large recycling centers and bioenergy producers, as well as paper manufacturers. UPM Paper employs almost 14,500 people. In 2010, the business group’s net sales amounted to EUR 7.6 billion. To learn more, visit www.upmpaper.com.

Vertaris is a newly created 100% recycled pulp and graphic paper producer. It has a high end recycled pulp capacity of close to 200,000 metric tons at the Voreppe plant near Grenoble, France. Vertaris also produces a variety of recycled graphic and cut-size papers. FOr additional information, visit www.vertaris.eu.