Permanent Recycled Paper – Myth or Truth? Evaluation of Selected Recycled Papers According to the ISO 9706 Standard

With the increasing use of recycled paper, its application as a permanent paper for archival purposes has been discussed. Although it was initially thought that recycled paper would not be of sufficient quality for this application, some permanent recycled papers are now commercially available. In this study, recycled papers with declared ISO 9706 standard compliance were purchased and their required properties were verified by laboratory testing. Moreover, a few additional tests not required by the standard were added. The results showed that half of the tested recycled papers are truly permanent according to the ISO 9706 standard and that their properties are comparable to those of the non-recycled paper standards. Therefore, their use for archival purposes should be safe according to the chosen standard. However, the ISO 9706 compliance of the rest of the tested recycled papers is at least questionable even though it was declared by the manufacturer. Consequently, when considering the use of permanent recycled paper, it is strongly recommended to verify its required properties through independent testing.