The confederation of european paper industries published its key statistics report showing exports of recovered paper grew to more than 11bn tonnes, a rise of 21.1%.

Collection of recovered paper has also risen to nearly 60bn tonnes, and Europe's recycling rate now stands at 66.6%, up 2.7% year on year.

Germany made the greatest use of recycled paper using nearly 32% of the total, followed by France, Spain and Italy. The UK followed with 8.2% utilisation.

However, paper production and consumption had both dropped 4% to 99bn and 88bn tonnes respectively, which the industry organisation put down to the effects of the weakening economy.

Consolidation in the industry is also evident, with numbers of companies, paper and pulp mills, machines, staffing levels and turnover all dropping year on year in line with slowing demand between 4 and 5%.

Although the industry has grown marginally smaller, energy consumption appears to show a plateau trend, although the fraction of energy made through biomass increased to nearly 53% in 2007.

The report also includes environmental information, showing that while energy consumption has increased in line with production volumes, the industry's use of chemicals has dropped dramatically since 1990.