Shotton Paper Company plc

Part of the UPM Kymmene group, Shotton Paper Company is a leading newsprint manufacturer. With an annual capacity of 460,000 tonnes, it produces over 20% of the UK’s newsprint requirements.

The mill manufactures paper from a combination of renewable Sitka Spruce grown in the UK, and also relies on recovered paper from household collection systems.

Problem

Shotton Paper Company wanted to increase the amount of recovered fibre from kerbside collections in Greater Manchester, Halton and Warrington. It also needed to understand levels of newsprint consumption so it could set collection targets for business planning.

Shotton acknowledged that the consumption of newsprint varies across consumers and asked CACI to help it prioritise its kerbside collection resources.

Solution

Previous waste analysis had identified a strong correlation between the volume and composition of household waste and ACORN type. For Shotton, CACI took a quite different approach; instead of looking at what was in the bins, it focused on the consumption patterns of different types of household. This approach is more cost effective than traditional hand sorting waste analysis techniques and draws on more accessible consumer research.

ACORN is CACI’s market leading consumer classification tool and is the ideal way to group and analyse all GB households because it combines geography with the characteristics of people who live in an area.

CACI began by looking at the ACORN profiles of those consumers reading over 211 newspaper and magazine titles, all of whom publish the circulation figures through the Audit Bureau of Circulation. This enabled CACI to identify those households likely to read any of the publications and allocate the circulation figures accordingly. CACI also took account of the geographical area in which some titles, especially local free newspapers, were distributed and constrained the consumption to this area.

The next step was to focus in on those local authorities with whom Shotton were working with to improve their understanding of recyclable material hotspots. The CACI data identified individual wards within the authorities where consumption was high and as such, the amount of recyclable material would also be increased.

Benefits

Working with David Davies & Associates, a leading Waste consultancy advising the key players across the waste sector, CACI produced improved performance measures for each authority and equipped the authorities with tools to improve their awareness and collection strategies.

In the future, Shotton will be able plan similar campaigns in new locations based on the improved consumption data derived from the ACORN led consumption analysis.

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