A Guide to Recycled Paper Grades

Paper and board collected through household, commercial, and industrial recycling channels is not a homogeneous material. Before it re-enters the production process, it is sorted into grades that reflect fibre quality, contamination level, and composition. In the European Union and associated markets, the standard reference for this classification is EN 643 — the European List of Standard Grades of Recovered Paper and Board.

Understanding how grades are defined, and what determines which grade a given batch falls into, is useful context for anyone involved in packaging specification, procurement, or sustainability reporting.

The EN 643 Classification Framework

EN 643 organises recovered paper into five main groups, each subdivided into individual grades identified by a two-digit code. The five groups are:

• Group 1 — Ordinary grades: Mixed recovered paper and board with moderate quality requirements. Typically includes mixed household collections and similar undifferentiated streams.
• Group 2 — Medium grades: Sorted and relatively clean paper, often from retail and office sources. Lower contamination than Group 1.
• Group 3 — High grades: White and near-white paper with low contamination. Used for tissues, printing and writing paper grades, and some food-contact applications.
• Group 4 — Kraft grades: Corrugated board and kraft paper. Among the most commonly traded grades globally, driven by demand for recycled containerboard.
• Group 5 — Special grades: Defined by specific technical characteristics such as laminated boards, newsprint bales, or sorted white grades.

The standard describes each grade using three parameters: the minimum usable fibre content, the maximum moisture content, and the allowable contamination level. These parameters directly affect what the recovered material can be reprocessed into.

What Grade Determines in Practice

The grade of recovered paper influences which type of mill can accept it and what end product can be made. Corrugated box manufacturers and liner board mills work primarily with Grade 4 material (OCC — Old Corrugated Containers), which is relatively clean, high in long fibre, and consistent in quality. By contrast, tissue and hygiene paper manufacturers may require higher-grade white paper because residual ink and coatings create quality problems in the finished product.

Medium-grade recovered paper from offices and retail collections often feeds into packaging board or printing paper production, depending on the mill's process and the fibre mix needed.

Sorting and Quality Control

The transition from collected waste paper to a declared grade involves sorting at a materials recovery facility (MRF) or at the collection point. Optical sorters, air classifiers, and manual inspection are used to separate newsprint, white office paper, corrugated board, and contaminated or non-recyclable fractions.

Quality at the point of sorting affects the grade that can be declared and, consequently, the price the material attracts in the recovered fibre market. Contamination — defined in EN 643 as material that cannot be used in the papermaking process — is the central quality variable. Contaminants include plastic films, adhesive labels, food residues, and non-fibrous materials.

Poland's Recovered Paper Infrastructure

Poland operates a paper recycling system that includes both household collection through colour-coded bins (blue bins for paper in the segregated waste scheme) and commercial collection from offices, retailers, and industrial sources. The collected material feeds a domestic corrugated and packaging board sector, with some volumes traded internationally.

Corrugated board is among the highest-volume material streams, reflecting Poland's role as a significant producer of corrugated packaging. Old corrugated containers (OCC) are a well-established commodity in domestic mill procurement.

Fibre Quality and Recycling Cycles

Cellulose fibres shorten with each recycling cycle. Virgin fibre typically has longer, stronger fibres than fibre that has been recycled multiple times. In practice, most recycled paper mills blend recovered fibre with some virgin fibre to maintain sheet strength and formation quality. The proportion of recycled content depends on the grade being produced and the mill's technical configuration.

The European paper industry's published data indicates that paper fibres can be recycled, on average, around five to seven times before they become too short to contribute structural strength. This degradation is a physical constraint that means recycled paper production depends on a continuous input of fibre at varying stages of prior use.

Grade Group	Typical Sources	Common End Uses
Group 1 — Ordinary	Household mixed collections	Packaging board, wrapping paper
Group 2 — Medium	Offices, retail, sorted collections	Newsprint, printing paper
Group 3 — High	White office paper, printer rejects	Tissue, high-quality printing grades
Group 4 — Kraft	Corrugated boxes, industrial kraft	Corrugated board, liner
Group 5 — Special	Newsprint, laminates, specific sorted grades	Grade-specific; varies by subcategory

Relevance to Packaging Specification

Packaging manufacturers specifying recycled content draw on the grade system when sourcing recovered fibre or recycled-content board from their suppliers. A claim of "recycled content" on packaging is meaningful when it can be traced back to a declared grade of recovered material, ideally verified through a chain-of-custody certification such as FSC Recycled or PEFC Recycled.

Without this traceability, claims of recycled content remain difficult to verify for downstream buyers and for regulatory purposes under frameworks such as the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.