Annual Report 2022: Towards a Circular Economy
Our cover, a crumpled piece of paper surrounded by lush leaves, represents the importance that we as a company place on waste as a solution to climate degradation. In particular, we believe in reusing and recycling waste paper and paper products to create packaging solutions following the principles of a Green Circular Economy.
Pulp and paper is the 3rd largest industrial polluter of air, water, and soil and when it rots, it emits methane gas which is 25 times more toxic than CO2. Moreover, 42% of all global wood harvest is used to make paper i.e. paper production is one of the main causes of deforestation. Worse of all, demand for paper is expected to double before 2030.
However, the solution is simple and has been available for decades: recycling. Recycling 1 tonne of paper saves around 1400 liters of oil, 26,500 liters of water and 17 trees as well as combating pollution and climate change caused by deforestation. In an effort to highlight this solution and the importance RPL places on it, we have chosen this simple yet effective image to represent us this year.
As the climate crisis deepens, we must all, as consumers, producers and individuals, play our part. As companies set ambitious goals to use more recycled content in their packaging, there is more need than ever for partnerships and investments. Together, we must develop the infrastructure and processes that allow us to recover high-quality materials that can be used for recycled packaging, since Pakistan in particular lags behind the world.
In the linear economy, raw natural resources are taken, transformed into products and disposed off. On the other hand, a circular economy model aims to close the gap between the production and the natural ecosystems’ cycles, ultimately eliminating ‘waste’. Companies cannot create a circular economy on their own, and our stakeholders have an important role to play.
Conscious of our contribution to society and the environment, we seek to continually expand our horizons while keeping sustainability and diversity at the heart of our efforts. We hope that along with our stakeholders, we can participate in this program in order to re-use, reduce and recycle, ultimately playing our part in fighting against climate change.
Our strategy to make this a reality is closed-loop recycling model: a process where waste is collected, recycled and then used again to make the same product it came from. To stretch the use of recovered paper as a raw material in papermaking, it is imperative that paper is source segregated and collected from reliable sources. This means that every source plays a crucial part in the paper recycling and paper making process’s success and to achieve high recovery percentages of paper.
Through our collaboration, we hope that the used corrugated boxes we collect from supply chains, will be recycled and turned into new corrugated boxes in our packaging division, creating a real closed-loop solution for our customers. As one of the leading packaging companies in Pakistan, with over 20 years of experience in recycling and waste management, we will try our best to find a way to make 100% of the resources you send us into something useful once more. Thus, reducing waste sent to landfill and reducing the company’s impact on the environment.
Click here to download our Annual Report for 2022