Trimming Down
on Your Paper
Weight
Paper is the fastest-growing segment of the wood
products industry. Care about what that means for
forests and want to do more? Frustrated every time
you try to purchase a decent paper? Read on.
BY MARGARET CHANDLER
I
f paper were a recent invention, it
might be called “tree-er” rather than
paper. The word “paper” derives from
the word “papyrus,” not much used these
days for paper production. Those of us
who love forests and marvel at trees
might pause to reflect every time we
wasted a piece of “tree-er.”
Consider this: Every year the world
loses about 14 million hectares of natural
forest cover — an area larger than
One of the primary reasons forests are
logged is for the production of paper. At
least 20 percent of all the wood taken is
used to make paper. Canadians consume,
on average, about 335 kilograms of paper a
year. It takes roughly nine trees with a
diameter of a telephone pole and the height
of a four-storey building to make that much
paper. Although the use is ephemeral, the
product lingers on. Paper makes up roughly
40 percent of the municipal solid waste
I foresee the time when industry shall no longer denude the forests
which require generations to mature, nor use up the mines which
were ages in the making, but shall draw its materials largely from the
annual produce of the fields.
– Henry Ford, 1934
burden in many industrial countries.
As if this were not enough, paper
production is a dirty business. The pulp
and paper industry is one of the most
polluting industries in the world and
according to Reach for Unbleached, a
national foundation working for a sustainable pulp and paper industry, it’s the third
most polluting industry in North America.
As grim as all this sounds, and indeed
it is, hope springs eternal. The emergence
of an exciting range of tree-free paper
products is a tremendous boon. Thanks to
Nonwood Fibres
There’s nothing trendy about nonwood
papers. A Chinese official, Ts’ai Lun, is
credited with inventing the first paper
about 1900 years ago out of a curious mix
of mulberry, hemp fishing nets and rags.
Even in Canada, wood is a relative
newcomer. Until the end of the 19th
century, agricultural fibres and rags made
up the raw material stream. The recent
resurgence of interest in nonwood papers
brings us round full circle to Ts’ai Lun and
his ingenious treatment of agricultural
crops and waste materials.
Nonwood or tree-free fibres generally fall into two categories. First are the
fibre crops that are grown intentionally
for their fibres. These include crops such
as hemp and bamboo that are ideal for
papermaking because they are strong
and bond well. These fibre plants are
also championed as being more pestand weed-resistant. Of course,
intentionally farmed fibre crops run the
risk of becoming industrial monocultures
with all the resultant environmental
impacts. However, at this stage in their
evolution this is not a serious concern.
Second, are the agricultural residues.
These are the “waste” products derived
from food crops such as flax and
bananas. The pulp and paper industry
already uses some of these to create
Photo courtesy of Motherhemp Ltd.
Greece. This doesn’t include an even
larger area that is subject to degradation
by less obvious threats such as loss of
species and air pollution. The global
industry’s insatiable appetite for timber is
projected to surpass supply in the next
10 to 20 years. If we look specifically at
Canada, ecologist Dr. David Schindler
maintains that Canada’s boreal forest has
only about 50 years of life remaining,
and in some provinces more than 60
percent of the boreal forest is scheduled
for clearcutting.
enlightened paper companies, of which
there are more and more, dramatic
advances in the quality of recycled papers
are being made. Today’s recycled papers
easily met the two most common standards
for assessing the quality of writing papers
— opacity and brightness. And processes
that enable us to reduce or eliminate bleaching are becoming the order of the day,
especially in Scandinavian countries.
Harvesting hemp in the United Kingdom.
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2001
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specialty grades of paper such as
A SAMPLE OF THE BEST
OF THE NONWOODS:
Intentionally Grown
Fibre Crops
Kenaf A member of the hibiscus family
and related to cotton and okra. A
model of truly sustainable agriculture,
it grows three to four metres in a fourmonth period. It’s easy to grow,
requires minimal use of herbicides or
pesticides and has low water requirements.
An exhaustive study by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture in the 1950s
concluded that kenaf was the best
alternative from among nearly 200
plant species studied.
Hemp Until the 1930s, the hemp plant
had served for centuries as one of the
world’s most valuable sources of fibre.
Similar to kenaf, it has a yield-perhectare several times higher than
trees; over the course of 20 years, one
hectare of hemp will produce as much
paper as four hectares of trees.
Canada has authorized farmers to
grow it commercially, and several U.S.
states have legislation pending that
would legalize production of industrial
hemp.
Agricultural Crop
Residues
Sugarcane bagasse The fibre byproduct from the crushed stalks of the sugarcane plant, after the sugar has been
extracted. Reported to be the most
widely grown crop in the world.
Kimberley Clark is a major producer of
bagasse paper.
Wheat Straw The agricultural residue
burned following the wheat harvest,
can be used to produce wheat straw
paper, particleboard and other building materials. Huge potential on the
prairies as Dr. Wong, the creator of
Arbokem paper, has discovered.
The SimpleLife Guide to Tree-Free,
Recycled and Certified Papers is an
excellent reference and contains many
samples of these papers. Visit their
website at simplelife.com.
14 / E N C O M P A S S
M AGA Z INE
Too many of our world’s forests are ending up like this.
currency and art papers. In North
America hundreds of millions of tonnes of
agricultural residues are burnt, or otherwise disposed of, annually. This massive
burning of agricultural resources releases
substantial particulates and emissions and
is also a substantial missed opportunity for
sustainable resource management and
rural economic development.
Because they grow for only one season,
nonwood fibres contain considerably less
lignin (the natural glues) than tree fibre.
Lignin binds cellulose together and re­moving it is one of the reasons the pulping
process is so energy and chemical intensive. Moreover, many of the nonwood
fibres are stronger than tree fibre, meaning
they can be recycled more times and help
strengthen recycled sheets. Hemp paper,
for example, can be recycled seven times,
wood pulp paper only three times.
recycled. Make sure you distinguish
between preconsumer materials —
things like mill scraps and unsold
magazines — and postconsumer
materials that must have been
purchased by someone and then
discarded. The minimum you should
accept is 30 percent postconsumer.
Recycled paper reduces energy
consumption up to 70 percent over
processing virgin pulp and requires 55
percent less water to process. For every
tonne of paper made from waste paper,
we save 17 trees, 26 500 litres of water
and 2.5 cubic metres of space in
landfills.
If your paper choice is wood-based,
maximize the Forest Stewardship
Council-certified content (see
Encompass, Feb. 2001 for a detailed
discussion of the certification process.)
High-Quality Recycleds
As Michael Kalmanovitch, the owner
of Earth’s General Store in Edmonton, is
quick to point out, if you’re not buying
recycled products, you’re not recycling.
As tempting as the non-wood papers
are, it’s also important to support the
recycling industry. That’s why many
paper experts believe the best papers
combine all three elements: non-wood
fibres, post-consumer wood fibres and a
process that’s chlorine free.
Odd as it seems, it is important to
qualify what we mean when we say
“recycled” because there are no regulations in place governing the use of this
term. You can find papers that are 50
percent or more virgin fibre labelled
Alternatives to Chlorine
Some years ago, I was the idealistic owner
of a company with the mission of wholesaling the very best in environmental paper
products. I remember trying to negotiate a
major deal with a large pipeline company in
Calgary. But when the supportive purchasing
manager distributed samples of the cream-coloured 100 percent recycled paper
throughout the company, the word came
back: Don’t buy it – it’s not white enough.
Apparently, it’s not only the Aryan Nations
who consider white to be superior. Amazing
as it is, we persist in the notion that bleached
white is more desirable than off-whites, even
though the latter are far easier on the eye.
This illogical stance ignores the true cost of
bleaching everything literally to death. Bleach
Recommended papers
Continuum Kenaf (Crane & Co. — 200
years of experience in manufacturing
paper from non-wood fibres) 50 percent
kenaf and 50 percent recovered cotton
rag. Also produce Continuum Hemp
paper made with 50 percent hemp fibre
and 50 percent recovered cotton rag.
Crane papers available through
GreenMan Paper Co. 138 West 6th Street
Vancouver, B.C. V5Y1K6 Ph. 604-7084403.
Downtown Paper (Arbokem) 45 percent
agri-pulp (straw), 43 percent post consumer waste and 12 percent calcium carbonate filler. TCF. Totally effluent-free
agri-pulp manufacturing. Contact
Arbokem at 604-322-1317 or visit http://
agripulp.com.
Eco-21 Paper (Ecosource Paper Inc.) 40
percent hemp, 40 percent flax, 20 percent cotton. Oxygen bleaching. Milled in
Eastern Europe. Contact them at 1-800665-6944 or visit www.island.net.com/
~ecodette/ecosource.htm.
New Life Dual Purpose (Rolland) 80
percent recycled with 60 percent
post-consumer fibre. Eighty percent PCF
and 20 percent TCF. Union-made in
Canada. Graphic Resources and
Unisource
distribute the Rolland line.
Sandpiper (Domtar) The world’s first 100
percent post-consumer, non-deinked and
unbleached recycled paper. Now produced with a choice of either non-deinked
and deinked pulps. Coast Paper and
Unisource distribute Domtar products.
Vanguard Ecoblend (Living Tree Paper
Company) 25 percent hemp and 75 percent post-consumer waste, 100 percent
processed chlorine-free. Available
through GreenMan nonwood papermill.
Ph: 604-708-4403.
Weeds. A new Domtar paper that is 100
percent forest-free; made from hemp
and sugar cane.
cannot mask the true colour of filth — the
filth of degraded ecosystems, hazardous
chemicals and toxic pollution.
There are three ways to bleach paper:
with chlorine gas, with chlorine derivatives and using hydrogen peroxide (an
oxygen-based method). Choosing either to
bleach with hydrogen peroxide or not at
all is the best solution. In some countries,
chlorine-free paper mills have been operational for many years. Sweden has a law
requiring the elimination of organochloride emissions from paper mills by the
year 2000. A similar law takes effect in
British Columbia in 2002, although there
is some opposition.
Bleaching terminology can be
somewhat misleading. Here are some
essential terms:
Elemental chlorine free (ECF) No
chlorine gas, but chlorine derivatives
such as chlorine dioxide are used.
A process used in many recycled papers
and tissue products. Reduces some but
not all of the harmful compounds in the
effluent.
Totally chlorine free (TCF) No chlorine
or chlorine derivatives are used to make
the paper, which means the paper must
come from virgin fibre (with recycled
paper the content of the original paper
is unknown). TCF pulp has close to 25
percent of the European market.
Process chlorine free (PCF) Recycled
paper that is processed back into paper using
no chlorine or chlorine derivatives. This can
be paper that is not bleached, or paper
bleached with an oxygen-based system.
According to the Worldwatch
Institute paper “Paper Cuts: Recovering
the Paper Landscape” (highly recommended over­view of the paper
industry) 54 percent of the bleached
pulp produced worldwide in 1998 was
ECF (compared with 17 percent in
1997). This has definitely resulted in
substantial reductions in toxic
discharges. An average paper mill using
standard chlorine bleaching releases
about 35 tonnes of organochlorines
daily; ECF mills release seven to 10
tonnes. Remember, however, that TCF
mills produce and release none.
Like so many things awaiting our
avid purchase, the cheapest paper
bears the heaviest cost. It’s the kind of
paradox a satirist might appreciate, but
it’s not all that humourous. The cheapest photocopy paper is 100 percent
non-recycled, bleached all to hell and
clearcutting a forest somewhere close to
you. The best paper you can get is going
to be pricey, but you’ll relish it in ways
you never thought possible. There’s the
virtue of doing the right thing (don’t scorn
smugness, it’s an underrated pleasure),
the appreciation of yet another gift from
nature’s bounty and the joy of a fine
high-quality product. The paper will cost
more but you’ll use less. After years of
settling for a mediocre product, you’ve
committed to a planet with trees. You
respect paper for the valuable commodity
it truly is. ■
Some great websites
www.paperchoice.bc.ca
www.rfu.org
www.simplelife.com
www.conservatree.com
www.rethinkpaper.org
www.nonwoodpaper.com
www.agripulp.com
www.carbohydrateeconomy.org
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