This method creates a less feathery, harder-edged deckle. The complex deinking process makes recycling paper difficult and ultimately adds to the cost of a recycled sheet of paper. To produce high-quality recycled or recycled content papers for printing and writing, the deinking process needs to be thorough. The goal is a reusable fiber that has few impurities, since impurities lower the quality of a recycled sheet and can damage equipment in the papermaking and printing process. Deinking paper begins with pulping, a process that closely resembles virgin fiber pulping.
Fibers swell in the water, and as they rub against each other the impurities start to fall away.
Heat and chemicals speed the process. Screening then removes large, heavy contaminants, and fine screening removes the smaller, lighter ones. Next the pulp is washed, similar to the way clothes are washed. Flotation is another deinking method. It's the opposite of washing, in that the ink is turned back to its water-repelling state.