The invention is directed towards methods, compositions, and apparatus for increasing the strength of paper made out of a furnish having a large proportion of OCC. The method involves the following steps: 1) Providing a paper furnish having a large amount of OCC in it, 2) adding strength promoter to the furnish prior to adding a strength agent to the furnish, 3) adding a strength agent to the furnish, and 4) making a paper product from the furnish. This method allows cheap OCC material to be used in a papermaking process without the quality problems that the anionic trash in OCC typically causes. Thus paper products having low costs and high quality can be produced.