Premier Paper considers industry's eco-impact

An industrial process on the scale of the global paper industry inevitably consumes precious natural resources and has a significant impact on the world.

Some approaches to the environmental issues raised by the supply and use of paper overlook this impact and fail to acknowledge that the industry has any adverse affects on the environment.

Paper is now and will remain an integral part of daily life.

It is important therefore, that consumers are able to develop a clear understanding of the environmental issues surrounding the manufacture of paper and, by doing so, make informed choices about the use of this essential product.

Few other commodities have had a greater influence on the development of civilisation than paper.

For centuries, it has been the invaluable medium for transferring and stimulating ideas.

Today it is used in countless different applications.

It is relatively inexpensive, recyclable, biodegradable and renewable.

So what's the problem? There was scarcely any problem at all when the demand for paper was relatively low and papermaking was little more than a cottage industry.

But paper consumption has increased twenty-fold during the 20th century and, since the 1960s, world consumption of paper has quadrupled with the use of printing paper increasing six-fold.

At the present time, the bulk of this paper is still produced and consumed in the developed world: while accounting for only 9 per cent of the world's population, the top four paper consuming nations (the US, Japan, Germany and the UK) consume 50 per cent of all the paper produced globally and their demand is expected to increase by another 80 per cent by 2010 (from 1993 levels).

By 2020, new demand - from fast-developing countries like China - will help to double the 2005 consumption of paper and thus accelerate the global thirst for paper to unsustainable levels.

Unsustainable levels? Yes - because there is a price to pay for our love affair with paper.

In environmental terms, the world cannot afford to go on increasing its demand for paper at the current rate.

It is an awkward reality for paper makers and paper merchants to embrace.

However, their aim in future should be to continue providing the paper that their customers require - but only the paper that their customers really need.

Paper directly affects the environment through the use of energy, chemicals and water in its manufacture.

Through the production of wood pulp, its main raw material, it also impacts on the world's forests and on climate change.

After it is used, it will most probably end up as landfill or be incinerated because - unlike glass or metal - paper cannot be infinitely recycled.

The paper industry has made substantial efforts to limit the impact of papermaking on the environment and its use of resources has improved significantly in recent years.

The amount of energy used in papermaking will depend heavily on the type of paper produced and the equipment used to produce it, but the Confederation of Paper Industries has calculated that the average use of energy to make paper in the UK has dropped by 40 per cent over the past two decades.

Even so, a typical manufacturer in the UK currently reports a total site usage of 24.3GJ (6,750 kW/h) per net saleable tonne of paper produced and, in addition to that, more energy will have been consumed in the production of the mill's primary raw material, wood pulp.

When multiplied across the hundreds of millions of tonnes of paper produced globally each year, this is an immense amount.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the paper industry is the world's fifth largest industrial consumer of energy and the third largest in the United States.

Because the overall consumption of precious resources by the paper industry is still rising and because of the increased demand for paper, suppliers and users can help by sourcing as much paper as possible from manufacturers that can demonstrate the best use of these resources such as: integrated mills (where wet pulp can be pumped directly to the paper making process) which use less energy than their non-integrated counterparts; mills that use renewable energy - like the biomass from pulp production - which, in principle, is environmentally more friendly than using fossil fuels for papermaking; mills that adopt the most rigorous controls of their water and chemical usage.

A final thought on the environmental impact of paper production: how white does paper really need to be? Whiteness levels have increased dramatically in recent years.

Paper users should be encouraged to save money and help reduce the consumption of environmentally unfriendly bleaching chemicals by specifying papers with lower brightness levels.

Everyone who uses, sells or manufactures paper should take very seriously the impact of papermaking on the environment - and particularly its impact on the world's forests.

There are genuine anxieties in this respect about illegal logging, the destruction of natural habitats and the protection of human rights.

There are also real concerns about the environmental cost of monoculture plantations of foreign tree species that have replaced natural forests - an issue that relates to wood pulp production worldwide but which is particularly significant in the tropics.

Monoculture is an efficient way to grow pulp wood but it is not an acceptable method of production when the plantations fundamentally change the hydrology of an area, destroy natural ecosystems or are developed without consideration for the rights of the indigenous population.

Concerns about the impact of papermaking on the world's forests extend beyond the well-publicised issues in the tropics.

Closer to home, there is a growing threat to the Taiga - or Boreal Forest - encircling the Northern hemisphere.

The Taiga is a belt of coniferous forest which makes up one third of the world's total forest area and represents the single largest ecosystem on the planet, covering the far northern regions of North America, Asia and Europe.

According to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), old growth forests remain a significant source of fibre in boreal regions, accounting for 15 per cent of total global wood requirement for pulp production.

Some of these northern forests are, therefore, among the most threatened habitats in the world in terms of loss of old growth or primary woodland.

In Scandinavia, large-scale exploitation of the forests has already transformed virtually all forest land into intensively managed secondary forests and it is realised that large-scale industrial forestry is by far the most important threat affecting the Taiga today.

Paper suppliers must ensure that the pulp used in the paper that they sell comes from forests which are managed in the most environmentally and socially responsible way.

As far as possible, they should use pulp which has a credible, independent, third-party certification in respect of its source and, therefore, of forest management and restoration practices in the forests where the wood for pulp making was grown.

At the moment, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is currently the only international certification programme that comes close to ensuring these objectives.

In the future, it will not be enough simply to rely on FSC certification.

Paper suppliers will need to understand and respect wider concepts of forest conservation such as HCV (high conservation value).

There can be no argument against the recycling of paper.

In principle, the process of making recycled paper will save energy, use less water, and reduce the amount of chemicals used compared with making paper from virgin fibres.

For every tonne of paper recovered for recycling, about three cubic metres of precious landfill space will be saved.

The UK should recycle more paper and use more of its waste paper in the domestic production of paper and board - instead of exporting over five million tonnes of waste paper each year.

Although the usage is reduced, the production of recycled paper still consumes valuable resources and the recycling of paper to make the 'fine' papers used for writing, copying and higher-quality printing is especially demanding in that respect.

The best use of recycled fibres is in less demanding applications such as boards, corrugated cartons and newsprint.

Paper can be made from almost any fibrous source - not just trees.

Cotton, straw, hemp, flax, bamboo, rye and jute are all possible sources of fibre.

Paper makers should be encouraged, therefore, to continue searching for alternative sources of fibre if these can be proved to be more environmentally friendly.

In practice, the vast bulk of paper produced today comes from trees - they are a convenient, flexible and relatively cheap source of pulp.

But there are alternatives.

One manufacturer already produces a range of coated papers suitable for high-quality printing applications that contains a high proportion of bagasse - a by-product from the refining of sugar.

Sugar cane is a crop that is regrown annually and therefore an environmentally efficient generator of oxygen compared with trees.

Furthermore, bagasse pulp requires less energy in its production and uses fewer chemicals in its bleaching.

Unlike the UK where 80gsm paper is still the norm, the biggest paper consuming nation in the world (the USA) uses 75gsm paper as a standard in its offices.

In Japanese offices, the paper is lighter still.

Using 70gsm paper instead of 80gsm can use 23 per cent less wood fibre, 20 per cent less water, 28 per cent less energy and produces 13 per cent less waste.

And yet, today's 70gsm papers will perform just as efficiently in the most demanding xerographic applications as an 80gsm equivalent.

It is also possible to design finished products that use lighter weights.

A lower substance of paper can achieve the same desired effect for the finished printed product as intrinsically bulkier papers.

Better still, market demand should be shaped by lowering expectations as far as the weights of papers are concerned.

Paper is a wonderful product but its ecological impact on the planet is already too great and it is growing too quickly.

Initiatives should be supported which recognise the need to contain this impact such as: limiting the overall consumption of paper; reducing the reliance on virgin fibre from trees; urging social responsibility in pulp and paper manufacture; being alert to the potential threats to our environment in the production of wood pulp; demanding the clean production of both pulp and paper.

These are not new proposals: they have been advocated by various environmental organisations for many years.

It's time that they were taken seriously.

Both paper manufacturers and paper merchants have a critical role in helping paper consumers make informed choices to ensure that the price paid for paper will not be environmentally unacceptable.

Premier Paper is part of this industry and considers as its responsibility the support of paper consumers - printers, print specifiers, office workers, home office workers, in fact all paper consumers - by putting its knowledge and expertise at their disposal.

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