ERPA is the European Recovered Paper Association and a daughter federation of BIR.

Created in the early nineties under the name of WAPAC, ERPA aims at promoting the use and international trade of recovered paper for further production of recycled paper and cardboard. ERPA members are the national recovered paper federations of the different European Union countries.

Although the international federation BIR (and in this particular case, the BIR paper division) primarily deals with all matters relating to materials recovery and recycling at a world level, ERPA strictly focuses on European Union topics.

ERPA's main objectives are to study and examine all the commercial, legal, environmental and technical issues relating to the trade, recovery, process, recycling and transportation of "used" paper. In close cooperation with its European Union counterpart CEPI, ERPA has participated in the development of the European Union Recovered paper standard specifications and of the most recent European declaration on paper recovery.

The major concern of ERPA members is the current lack of clear legal distinction between collected unprocessed paper which is not suitable for immediate use and consumption by the paper and board producers and the paper which has been processed and recovered according to strict technical and environmental specifications. In ERPA's view recovered paper should not be submitted to the European Union "waste" legislation and should be freely traded in order to supply the producers of new and recycled paper in the European Union and elsewhere in the world.

Paper recycling in Europe

“The origins of the European paper industry are to be found in recycling.
It was the sharp rise in the amount of industrial printing and in the volume of books, newspapers and packaging being produced in the 19th century that forced the paper industry to seek more accessible and stable sources of raw material - cellulose fibres...Download full version (PDF)