"It could pose serious problems at the recycling stage, as flexo uses water-based inks, which are more difficult to separate," said an industry source.
A spokesman said NI was looking at "all sorts of processes", but that nothing had been decided yet.
Flexo inks do not remove themselves as easily in the recycling stage as oil-based offset inks, and complicated chemical bleaching is needed to make the newsprint suitable for re-use.
Kathy Bradley, director of external affairs at the Paper Federation, said: "I’m concerned to know that this could be a possibility."
The Waste Resources Action Programme’s (WRAP) material sector manager for paper, Mark Macaulay, said: "We have heard rumours but that’s all they appear to be at this stage. However, we would not encourage something that discourages the recycling of any materials."
Sources have suggested that if NI decided to opt for flexo the lack of suitably speedy CTP could cause more problems, leading not only to fewer choices of front-end equipment but also far slower production.
Story by Andy Scott
