| Where does the term paper come from? |
|
In
its technical form, paper is an aqueous deposit of any vegetable fibre
in sheet form. The name comes from the Latin "papyrus",
which in the hands of the early Egyptians (its first known users),
comprised the pith of a grass-like plant which was sliced into layers
and beaten or pressed into sheets. Paper, as we know it today, had
its origins in China. Traditional Chinese records give the credit for
its development to one T'sai Lun (about 105AD) who was even deified
as the god of papermakers.
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| What is paper made of? |
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The
raw material for the manufacture of paper is cellulose fibre, which
is obtained from trees, recovered paper and annual vegetable fibres
like cereal straws. Kaolin, starch and other products are used as auxiliary
materials in the paper production process.
|
| What are the advantages of paper? |
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Paper
is a natural product because it is manufactured from a natural and
renewable raw material, wood. It also has another big environmental
advantage: it is 100% recyclable.
|
| What would a world without paper be like? |
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No
toilet paper in the morning, no newspaper to read at breakfast, an
unfiltered coffee, no kitchen tissues to wipe the table, no cigarettes
after dinner, no bank notes to pay for a subway ticket (which wouldn't
exist anyway), no letters or faxes in the office, no paper to print
out emails, no paper to write on, no envelopes and no stamps, no photos
of loved ones, no paper napkins for lunch, no magazines to read during
breaks, no paper bags for carrying the shopping, no boxes to protect
important goods, no book to read in bed, etc.
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| Where does the wood - or pulp for papermaking - come from? |
Pulpwood
once came from whole mature trees. Today, the papermaker usually uses
the parts of the tree that are left after wood has been used for
other commercial purposes. Nearly all the pulpwood used in northern
Europe could be classed as secondary cuttings, for example, thinnings
extracted from the forest so that the remaining trees can grow to healthy
maturity.
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| What sort of wood is used for making paper and board? |
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The
industry was once based almost entirely on softwoods such as spruce,
pine, larch, fir and cedar. Now birch, aspen and other hardwoods occurring
in temperate climates are used as an ideal raw material for processing
into fluting for corrugated cases as well as printing and writing papers,
whilst eucalyptus, originally occurring only in Australia and New Zealand,
has been successfully cultivated in other warm climates (eg South America,
Spain and Portugal) as raw material for high-quality pulp suitable
for a wide range of papers. Nevertheless, softwoods provide longer
fibres (average 3 mm compared with 1mm for hardwoods) and continue
to be used for papers required to have the highest strength characteristics.
|
| Is the paper industry sustainable? |
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The
wood and paper industry is probably the only large-scale industrial
system which is genuinely capable of satisfying future requirements
with respect to sustainable development. With its renewable raw material,
ecologically adapted forest management techniques, environmentally-neutral
processes and recyclable products, the wood and paper industry has
the unique potential to become an integral part of an integrated carbon
cycle based on photosynthetic conversions of water, carbon dioxide,
nutrients and solar energy into a renewable woody biomass -- making
it one of the great natural cycles that control our climate and environment.
|
| In what way do forests combat the greenhouse effect? |
|
-
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen markedly over
the past century, in parallel to an increase in average global temperatures.
But forests can play a role in combating the effects of climate change.
Growing forests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert
it into carbohydrates by means of the process known as photosynthesis.
The world's forests therefore have the unique ability to absorb carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and to store it -- both in the growing
forest and in the timber and paper products that come from the forest.
The more the forest grows and the more we use products from the forest,
the better it is for the climate.
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| What is meant by "carbon sinks" for forests, wood and paper products? |
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The
forest is a "sink" for carbon dioxide. Growing forests
are efficient in "fixing" atmospheric carbon as trees take
up far more carbon through photosynthesis than they liberate through
respiration or when they begin to decompose. A cubic metre of wood,
for example, contains 210 kilos of atmospheric carbon. Young, vigorously
growing forests are more efficient at fixing carbon than old forests.
The gross carbon storage in natural forests reaches a ceiling level
after which the amount fixed is equal to the amount liberated in decomposition.
Large quantities of carbon are also bound in products coming from the
forest -- for example, in modern houses and wooden structures. Significant
amounts are also found in the increasing quantity of paper circulating
in society. The view that bound carbon will disappear once the forest
has been harvested is, therefore, erroneous -- many forest products
remain in circulation for a long time. Wooden houses and wooden bridges
store carbon for decades; carbon may be stored in books for 10 years,
while in toilet paper, it is rapidly returned to nature. In newsprint
and corrugated fibreboard, the carbon circulates several times via
the recovery of paper and is therefore stored longer than would otherwise
be the case. In this way, the recycling of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere is delayed.
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| Are we cutting down the world's trees just to make paper? |
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No.
Forest surface is increasing by 340,000 hectares per year. In the developed
world, advantage is taken of the massive research which has
been devoted to developing the best strains and to planting and conservation
techniques likely to produce the healthiest trees. The destruction
of rainforests in South America and Indonesia is an ecological disaster,
but has nothing to do with the papermaker. Fibre needed for papermaking
does not come from tropical sources and 80% of the wood used by the
European pulp and paper industry comes directly from Europe.
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| Will the world's trees ever be exhausted? |
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At
current rates of usage, trees for papermaking and other industrial
uses will last forever; more wood is growing than is being cut down.
Europe, for example, now has reserves of wood greater than a hundred
years ago, despite the enormous growth of wood usage during the last
fifty years. Forest stocks are being further conserved by the rapidly
increasing use of recovered paper for the manufacture of paper and
board. Over 30% of the world's papermaking fibres now derive from recovered
paper and board. Wood is one of the very few raw materials used by
a major industry which is infinitely self-renewing. Under Sustainable
Forest Management less wood is felled than produced. When the amount
of wood harvested is divided by the net annual increment od forests
we have a result of 65%, that means approximately one third of growing
stock is left in the forest.
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| What is forest certification? |
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Forest
certification is a communications medium to show customers that good
forest management is practised. To maintain credibility, it is important
that the certification system is developed by the market's partners,
without interference from the political sphere.
|
| Why recycle? |
|
Recovered
paper is a valuable raw material that can be reused to create new paper
and board products. Paper recovery is preferable to landfill
or incineration for energy recovery.
|
| What can be recycled? |
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Almost
any paper can be recycled, including used newspapers, cardboard, packaging,
stationery, "direct mail", magazines, catalogues,
greeting cards and wrapping paper. It is important that these papers
are kept separate from other household waste -- as contaminated papers
are not acceptable for recycling.
|
| Why can't we recycle more? |
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Although recycling is both economically and ecologically sound, recovered paper cannot be used in all paper grades nor can it be used indefinitely. There are three considerations:
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| Why use paper and board packaging? |
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Paper and
board forms the basis for about 40% of all packaging and comes
in a variety of forms from functional brown cardboard boxes to
beautiful hand made boxes, paper sacks, carrier bags, tubes, cartons
and wrapping papers. There has been a significant increase in the
use of paper and board packaging in the past 50 years for many
reasons.
Paper is generally called board when it is heavier than 220 grammes per square metre. |
| Is packaging unnecessary, expensive and wasteful? |
|
No. Packaging prevents product waste, contamination and pilfering; all of which add cost to the product. Very often the environmental effect of avoided wastage of products outweighs the impact of increased packaging. If a package has more than one layer, each will be essential and will serve a particular purpose such as retaining moisture. |
For more information
on:
| Recovery and Recycling, please go to: |
| Production of Paper |
| Chemicals and additives |
| Deinking |