Paper speaks out

Pulp nonfiction—the unwritten story of paper

November 1, 2010

Does going paperless really mean going green? Does it save a tree?

You can read from it, post your lean process charting on it, wipe your workspace with it, package your products in it, or shred it and use it as packing material. It’s portable, tangible, and flexible. It has been around at least since the Han court 105 A.D., in papyrus scrolls a thousand years prior, and is about as infinitely useful an invention as the wheel.

Yet, since the emergence of electronics, paper, paper mills, and paper products industries have been regarded by some environmentalists as being eco-unfriendly. Paper seemingly has become a poster child for waste. Several companies have gone to extremes to reduce or eliminate paper, making it the primary focus of their sustainability programs.

Many companies urging their customers to convert to electronic payment systems and paperless recordkeeping or online ordering do so by saying “go green” or “save a tree.” In reality, the concept of sustainability probably actually started within the forest products industry, particularly as it relates to responsible and sustainable forest management. Long ago the forestry industry recognized that if it didn’t regenerate forests and plant trees, its survival would be at risk.

Paper is just one manufactured product category, along with computers, apparel, and coffee. Like coffee, paper is produced from a renewable crop, and like paper, coffee produces waste. Starbucks alone generates an estimated 210 million pounds of spent coffee grounds each year in the U.S., but there has yet to be a campaign to “go coffeeless” or “save a bean.”

Since the dawn of the electronic age and partly as a result of the go paperless campaigns, paper usage has been reduced significantly, crumpling the paper production and paper products industries. Shuttered paper mills dot the Northwoods region of north central Wisconsin, the top pulp and paper-producing state in the U.S., spiking unemployment and flattening their economies as a result.

Paper and forestry products industries are growing vocal. You could say they have an ax to grind.

This article is intended to give the paper-producing and paper products industries a voice, a chance to tell their side of the issue, and to air their contention that the paper industry actually plays a positive role in sustainability.

These responses from paper-producing and paper products manufacturers and a few others just may alter everything you thought you knew about paper.

1. Does going paperless really “save a tree”?

Rick Ouellette, International Paper: The paper and forest products industry replenishes more than it takes and ensures the sustainability of forests by planting 1.7 million trees every single day—more than three times what is harvested.

Today there are 12 million more acres of forests in the U.S. than in 1987. Since the 1940s annual growth of new trees has always exceeded the number cut down. By 1992 tree growth outpaced harvest by 34 percent, and the volume of wood in the forest was 360 percent more than in 1920.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy has stated that the carbon sequestered on forested lands in 2006 was greater than the carbon released from harvesting wood over the same period.

When people use more paper, landowners plant more trees. When the demand for paper declines, tree farming also declines, taking all of the important ecological impacts like clean water and wildlife habitat right along with it.

If America’s private landowners can’t make money as tree farmers, many will turn to other income sources for the land. The U.S. could lose 44 million acres of forest to development in the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

So if you decide to decrease your use of paper, don’t think you’re going to “save a tree.” The reality is that the decreasing paper use may well cause a forest somewhere to be replaced by real estate development.

Forest products companies exist because of the perpetual growing, harvesting, and replanting of trees. Our financial future requires continual renewal of the forest. In fact, International Paper has been part of this cycle for more than 110 years.

We understand that if it makes sense for landowners to plant, grow, and harvest forests, the cycle carries on. With no economic incentive, tree farmers are increasingly finding it more profitable to sell these valuable resources for land development. The demand for wood-based products helps to maintain forests and ensure that trees are managed responsibly.

Lawrence Selzer, president and CEO, The Conservation Fund: According to the USDA’s recent report, “Private Forests, Public Benefits,” as much as 57 million acres of rural forests may experience land use change by 2030 due to the competing economic pressures of other land uses. Maintaining and increasing the public benefits of working forests ultimately require that ownership be financially rewarding.

American Forest & Paper Association: Forests and forest products store enough carbon each year to offset approximately 10 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

2. Is converting from a paper-based system to an electronic one really greener? Are pixels greener than pulp?

 David P. Podmayersky, sustainability director, EarthColor: Recent enlightenment on the e-waste problem (No. 1 waste problem) and toxicology issues, along with the carbon signatures of online communications, shows that the myth of “print: bad; digital: good” really does not hold up. Online storage constantly is consuming energy and emitting carbon. Every time a file is viewed, more carbon is emitted.

Total Reclaim Environmental Services: The use of computers, televisions, and other electronics continues to grow. As demand increases and technology evolves, older electronics are replaced and the volume of electronic waste that is generated increases.

It has been estimated that consumer electronics may be responsible for up to 40 percent of the lead found in landfills.

According to the EPA, more than 4 billion lbs. of e-waste was discarded in the U.S. in 2005, accounting for between 2 and 4 percent of the municipal solid waste stream. As much as 87.5 percent of this was incinerated or dumped in landfills. Only about 12.5 percent of the total was recycled.

E-waste contains toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants (BFR). These materials are considered bioaccumulative, which means they concentrate in fatty tissues and can have severe, negative impacts on fetal development and on nursing infants.

Lead can damage the human central and peripheral nervous systems, blood systems, and kidneys.  Mercury in lakes and rivers converts to methylated mercury in sediments, can accumulate in living organisms and travel up the food chain. Mercury can adversely affect a baby's growing brain and nervous system, and can cause organ damage and mental impairment in adults. Cadmium is a carcinogen, and can harm the kidneys. Research has shown that BFRs may increase the risk of cancer (digestive and lymph systems) or cause endocrine disruption.

Ouellette, International Paper: On average, it takes 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity to produce 440 lbs. of paper, the typical amount of paper each of us consumes annually. That’s the equivalent of powering one computer continuously for five months.

Using only the servers that power the Internet as comparison, the electronics industry uses more than 90 percent of the fossil fuels purchased off the grid. The conventional power generation systems used are only 45 to 60 percent efficient. The consumption rate for data centers in the U.S. alone doubled from 2000 to 2006 and is set to double again by 2011.

Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals, including gold, silver, and palladium, as well as the extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents.

Only 18 percent of U.S. electronic devices are currently recycled. E-waste now constitutes the U.S.’s single largest toxic waste export.

e-Stewards: What’s driving the e-waste crisis? Huge volumes. The rapid obsolescence of gadgets combined with the astronomically high demand for new technology has created mountains of e-waste. E-waste is the fastest growing waste stream our society produces.

When electronic equipment is burned, even worse toxins can form, such as dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, some of the most toxic substances known to humankind. Until recently manufacturers paid little attention to the idea of eliminating toxic materials in their products.

There is no financial incentive to recycle, and there’s usually not enough value in most electronic waste to cover the costs of responsibly managing it in developed countries, unless laws require such management as a service industry.

The policy of “free trade in toxic waste” means that some countries persist in freely trading in hazardous wastes despite the global norms. The export of toxic electronic waste to developing countries disproportionately burdens them with a toxic legacy and allows for externalization of real costs.

3. How is paper green?

Ouellette, International Paper: Paper is truly sustainable. It is biodegradable, recyclable, and reusable.

Paper’s primary raw material, wood, is a renewable resource. Forests are renewable. They capture carbon and help stabilize global climate. Many climate experts believe that a sustainably managed forest offers one of the least expensive and best ways to fight against climate change.

Paper waste is fully recoverable, ready for recycling into new paper. In the U.S., nearly 60 percent of all paper is recycled, recovered, and reused to make new paper products. 

Nick Santoleri, vice president of operations, Rockline Industries: Some of our products have been designed specifically to help preserve the environment. Our flushable moist toilet tissue is made 98 percent biodegradable and completely breaks up in the waste stream back to its fiber state. We developed an ecofriendly baby wipe made of 75 percent regenerated cotton from T-shirt trimmings, the other 25 percent being a renewable fiber.

Steve Ott, sustainable business development manager, Cascades Tissue Group:Our North River® tissue brand is certified processed chlorine-free (PCF) and recognized by the Chlorine Free Products Association (CFPA), Green Seal, and EcoLogo. 

4. Do you implement green practices in your manufacturing facilities and operations?

Santoleri, Rockline Industries: We focus on sustainability every day in both our product designs and how we manage our business. Rockline has established company-wide sustainability goals for the first time, focusing on key areas of the company’s environmental impact: carbon footprint, energy use, water reduction, material use, waste reduction, recycling improvements, and transportation.

In 2009 Rockline conducted a life cycle analysis comparing four different types of nonwoven substrate used in its baby wipes. The study concluded that certain airlaid substrates were environmentally superior to spunlace substrates, information that allowed our product development group to more accurately focus their sustainability efforts.

We are establishing “green teams” at every site with corporate goals of reducing waste, water usage, energy, and transportation “miles” and increasing recycling.

We’ve installed high-bay LED lighting in our production areas [see “LED conversion reduces operating, maintenance costs for paper product manufacturer, p. 16]. High-efficiency fluorescent lighting replaced metal halide lighting in our distribution centers.

Ouellette,International Paper: We are committed to sustainability and support third-party certification systems that define, regulate, and ensure that our paper comes from responsibly managed forests.

Ott, Cascades Tissue Group: Paper manufacturing undoubtedly has an impact on our planet’s air, water, and energy resources, and scrutiny is necessary as it forms the important basis of continuous improvement, motivation, and accountability in the industry.

This said, it’s important to remember that green business is truly a shared responsibility between companies and their customers, and the notion of a completely environmentally friendly life, while noble, is utopian. People tax the environment daily to provide shelter, tend to hygiene, produce clean food, communicate, and travel for work and their families. 

We’ve put a big premium on looking for novel ways to make our nonrenewable energy sources continually more efficient. Numerous Cascades plants are fitted with sophisticated equipment that measures energy consumption and can be very informative to strategy. Six years ago Cascades established an Energy Investment fund dedicated solely to energy efficiency in our manufacturing facilities. In 2009, 26 energy-efficiency projects in Cascades plants were financed.  Through these projects alone, we saved 283,000 gigajoules—equal to more than 1 percent of our total energy consumption and 12,334 tons in greenhouse gas emissions.

Sustainable paper manufacturing varies country by country and company by company. In South America and in some Asian countries, deforestation is barely slowing, while in North America and Europe, many timber companies manage their forests meticulously. In the U.S. the formation of the nonprofit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been a helpful encourager and driver of reforestation efforts.

Yet, Cascades passionately believes the ultimate answer emphasizes recycling more than reforestation.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that using recycled fiber instead of virgin fiber reduces the energy required in the production process by 64 percent.  Using recycled material also significantly diverts landfill space, as paper accounts for one-fourth of all landfill waste, contributing greatly to greenhouse gas methane emissions.

5. Do you source recycled raw materials?

 EPA: In the U.S., papermaking materials come from three primary sources: recycled paper: 33 percent; wood chips and scraps from sawmills: 33 percent; whole trees and other plants: 33 percent.

Ott, Cascades Tissue Group:We’re very proud that approximately 95 percent of Cascades’ products are made from recycled fiber versus the 45 percent industry average for tissue paper.

Our North River brand is manufactured with 100 percent recycled fiber with high percentages of postconsumer waste—up to 100 percent. Cascades used 2.1 million short tons of recycled fiber in 2009, helping to preserve 35 million trees.

With our origins uniquely based in waste recovery and the vast majority of our products comprised of recycled materials manufactured with industry-low levels of natural resource impact, Cascades has been a leader in the sustainability movement for the last 45 years.

Cascades’ water use was reduced to a low 10 cubic meters per ton of paper production—80 percent lower than the North American industry average.  Each drop of water used to produce North River is re-used up to 40 times.

Too often the conversation about an office’s paper use focuses only on copy paper when far more should be considered. Printer papers, which are now recycled an average of six times total, command the most attention when it comes to conserving resources in the workplace, yet products like bathroom tissue and paper towels require the exact same level of upfront resources and manufacturing and are generally one-and-done use products. Companies that are concerned with their impact on the environment should also find ways to purchase more sustainable tissue products, because using products that rely on cutting down virgin forests for such a single use is unnecessarily wasteful.

6. Do you green-power your operations?

The Paper Mill Store: We use wind to power all of our facilities. We choose to purchase wind power for our corporate offices as well as our converting and distribution center to help protect the environment and reduce greenhouse gases. The purchase of wind power credits serves as a voluntary subsidy for the growth and expansion of wind power production. This is important as it helps our country move away from foreign oil while reducing the introduction of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Electricity production is the main source of U.S. industrial air pollution. Fossil-fueled generators cause 67 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 23 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, and 40 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions lead to smog, acid rain, and haze and increase the risk of climate change.

Ouellette,International Paper: The pulp and paper industry is the single largest industrial user of carbon-neutral biomass fuels. Our industry is one of the biggest users of renewable, low-carbon energy in the world. Sixty percent of the energy used to make paper in the U.S. comes from carbon-neutral renewable resources and is produced on-site at the mills.

In addition, these facilities use combined heat and power (CHP) generation systems, which are 80 to 90 percent efficient. Fossil fuel use and purchased energy in this industry are steadily decreasing.

Santoleri, Rockline Industries: We have powered our road signs at our factory using solar power. We are installing a 400-ton geothermal HVAC system at our largest facility.

Ott,Cascades Tissue Group: For two years Cascades Tissue Group has used renewable, Green-e®-certified wind energy to offset greenhouse gas emissions associated with some of our manufacturing electricity consumption. Starting in 2008, we began purchasing renewable-energy credits (RECs) specific to our flagship environmental towel and tissue line, North River.

In April 2010 we doubled our commitment to RECs to a level that offsets 100 percent of the electricity used to manufacture North River towel and tissue products. That move reduced our indirect carbon emissions by over 43 million lbs., equivalent to taking 3,745 cars off the road each year.

A Final Note

Clearly, consuming paper does not cause the permanent loss of trees; neither does substituting electronic communications for paper eliminate environmental hazards.

To its credit, the e-world is working on reducing e-waste. The Basel Action Network (BAN) has established the e-Stewards® Certification program to help consumers of electronics recycling services identify responsible recyclers. To help promote these responsible companies, BAN has also established the e-Stewards Enterprise program to encourage businesses that generate e-waste to seek out e-Stewards recyclers for their recycling needs.

According to Seattle’s Total Reclaim, a leading recycler of computers and electronics in the Pacific Northwest, millions of pounds of e-wasteare now recycled each year across the country. Some manufacturers and brand owners are working with recyclers or creating their own take-back programs to manage the disposal of the electronic products they produce and distribute.

Sprint Nextel made it to No. 15 on Newsweek’s 2009 Green Rankings list, cited for being the first U.S.-based wireless telecom company to announce an absolute GHG emissions reduction target. The company set a goal in 2009 for 90 percent of suppliers to be in compliance with its environmental standards by 2017.

The point is not to transfer poster-child status from paper to electronics, but rather to clarify that using electronic media is not environmentally pure and to debunk some of the myths and remove the stigma surrounding paper and paper usage.

“Either/or” is not the answer,” International Paper’s Ouellette commented. “Instead, one must consider all the inputs and outputs before making a decision about which communications are better delivered electronically or on paper. By linking the power of paper with the efficiency of electronics, we can streamline communications and help maintain the best environmental balance possible.”

If the paper industry has environmental vulnerability, it is likely not in its waste production but rather in its power-intensive energy consumption.

The U.S. forest products industry, which includes wood furnishings and wood construction products as well as pulp and paper production, is the fourth largest consumer of energy, after the chemical, petroleum refining, and other manufacturing segments, according to the U.S. Department of Energy “2008 Industrial Technologies Market Report.”

But considering that the paper and paper products industry is decreasing fossil fuel use and increasing its carbon-neutral and renewable resources, its power usage may become a non-story.

American Forest & Paper Association, www.paperrecycles.org

Cascades Tissue Group, www.cascades.com/tissuegroup

The Conservation Fund, www.conservationfund.org

EarthColor, www.earthcolor.com

e-Stewards, http://e-stewards.org

International Paper Co., www.internationalpaper.com

Kimberly Clark Professional, www.kcprofessional.com

The Paper Mill Store, www.thepapermillstore.com

Rockline Industries, www.rocklineind.com

Total Reclaim Environmental Services, www.totalreclaim.com

U.S. Dept. of Energy, www.doe.gov

U.S. EPA, www.epa.gov

Sources

• Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2006 Facts and Figures
• Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI)
• Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
• Franklin Associates, a Division of ERG
•  Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
• Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies