Current standards on pulp & paper
A daily used product
Austria is a real paper paradise. Specialised companies produce all types of paper and board imaginable: for office use, for art prints, for packaging foodstuffs and diverse other products.
Their quality is ensured by international, European and Austrian standards.
- Credit: VOITH AG
Agreement on diversity
There is agreement among international experts on the quality criteria and properties of paper. Numerous test methods, saleable mass and dimensions (just think of A4) are commonly applied international standards. They promote transparency and ensure free trade.
Paper and more (examples):
ÖNORM EN ISO 536: Paper and board - Grammage
ÖNORM EN ISO 216: Writing paper and certain classes of printed matter - Trimmed sizes
ÖNORM EN ISO 801: Pulps - Determination of saleable mass in lots
ÖNORM EN ISO 15755: Paper and board: Estimation of contraries
- Credit: ASI prm
Contact with skin
Paper manufactured by the tissue industry comes into contact with skin. Toilet paper, handkerchiefs and tissue products give priority to quality. From absorption capacity to sizes and bulking thickness, standards guarantee that the customers get what they expect.
Tissue paper and tissue products:
ÖNORM EN ISO 12625 (ten parts):
Part 1: General guidance on terms
Part 3: Determination of thickness and bulking thickness
Part 6: Determination of grammage
- Credit: ASI prm
Healthy packaging
When bread, meat or cheese are wrapped in paper, standardisation takes special care of the quality of packaging. Its dye and chemical composition must not be detrimental to health.
Substances contained in the paper must not migrate to the foodstuffs. In recent years, European standardisers have given special attention to heavy metal contents.
Paper and foodstuffs (examples):
ÖNORM EN 646: Paper and board (in contact with foodstuffs) - Colour fastness
ÖNORM EN 12497: … - Determination of mercury
ÖNORM EN 12498: … - Determination of cadmium and lead
ÖNORM EN 1230: … - Sensory analysis
- Credit: ASI prm
Paper at offices
Even in the digital age, paper still is an important medium for disseminating information. To make sure that prints are durable, copies are legible and quality is a matter of course, European standards define minimum requirements.
Printing and business paper:
ÖNORM EN 12281: ... - Requirements for copy paper for dry toner imaging processes
ÖNORM EN 12283: ... - Determination of toner adhesion
ÖNORM EN 12858: ... - Requirements for continuous stationery
- Credit: ASI prm
Recycling and destroying
In Austria, paper returns as waste paper to the raw material cycle. In line with European standards, waste paper has to be graded before it is recycled. The second utilisation cycle should again supply material of as high a quality as possible.
This is an important issue especially in Austrian standards. Recycling is possible for former newspapers, documents or files. Rules also exist for the correct destruction of data printed on paper in Austria.
Waste paper standards (examples):
ÖNORM EN 643: Paper and board - European list of standard grades
ÖNORM S 2080: Quality requirements for secondary raw materials; Part 1: Paper
ÖNORM A 1116: Accelerated and dynamic ageing of paper and board
ÖNORM S 2109: Destruction of documents and data: Part 1: Paper
Around 80 standards ensure quality in the cycle of paper production, utilisation and recycling. In the past decades, paper has proved to be a valuable raw material - also thanks to standardised requirements.
