Recycling the daily newspaper has, happily, become second nature for most people, as putting rinsed milk bottles out for the milkman was a regular evening task of yesteryear. Since it is expected that newsprint will be disposed of, it is produced from low-grade paper, with bleaching rarely used as in graphic arts and publishing grades. Therefore, recycled newspaper stock is in many ways ideal for producing everyday food packaging, such as breakfast cereal boxes, which are also made to be thrown away after use. And, of course, a grey-coloured finish from remaining ink in the material is hardly an issue when on the inside of a box.
Given the sheer amount of packaging that a modern society gets through, it is important to be as ecologically sound as possible and the use of newsprint as a starting point helps with this. However, the everyday lifecycle of newsprint to recycling plant to packaging printer to supermarket shelf was stopped abruptly and brought to the attention of British shoppers in 2011, when Jordans Ryvita, part of the Associated British Foods group, ceased use of recycled stock for its breakfast cereals due to health concerns.
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