And worst, stickies weaken the paper, causing tears in the giant manufactured rolls. For the paper industry, the consequences have been serious. A dozen mills are operating at partial capacity. Because of stickies, there has been no increase in the percentage of stationery, envelopes and junk mail that gets recycled. And most of that is converted into low-quality paper such as tissue.
Stickies affect only the efforts to recycle writing paper.
But the new technology didn't didn't filter out stickies as well as expected. He recently tested 20 new stickies formulas developed by the adhesive industry. Five of those seem suitable to recycling. He expects that some environmentally safe stickies will be available next year.