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There are several environmental issues to consider when it comes to paper and its manufacture: how the forests are affected, how the paper is produced and how it is recycled. For this reason, there are stringent environmental requirements.
These days paper can be almost 100 per cent recycled, and to minimise the paper industry’s impact on the environment it is essential that the fibres are recycled to the greatest extent possible.
There is always some ‘waste’ in paper manufacture, such as when changing grades, transferring reels, cutting sheets, etc. Because this paper is ‘clean’ – which is to say that it has no print or other grime on it – it is ground down, added to the pulp stock and used again. This type of re-used surplus paper is called ‘broke’, and it ensures that everything in the process is exploited to the maximum. Similarly, the large amounts of water used in production are cleaned and used over and over again in more or less closed systems. Even the energy is utilised as much as possible, as the heat used in the drying stage is recovered and used again.
Paper that has been printed on or used in some other way nearly always contains impurities that a normal paper mill cannot deal with. In this case it is sent to a special recycled paper mill that has the necessary cleaning systems. The paper undergoes several stages of cleaning before being used to make new paper. Recycled paper is primarily used for newsprint or cardboard, but is also found in some grades of fine paper.
Since the cellulose fibres are processed and circulated several times, they eventually wear out. This is why it is not possible to completely close the paper ecocycle, as new or ‘virgin’ fibres will always be necessary in the paper industry.
Even this guide, which has been made from virgin fibres and broke, is on its way into an ecocycle. It may be recycled and become a newspaper in just a few years’ time, when you think you know everything about paper and printing. But what we really want is for you to keep it for many years to come, which is why we have made it from woodfree grades (apart from a few effect pages). If you do choose to keep it, it will last for several hundred years before it has to be recycled. |
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