Trees verses Paper: You Decide!

Cut Down On Paper And Save Trees

 

There is of course an element of truth in the above remark, in the same way that if you stop breathing then there will be (slightly) more air to go around. The basis of this greatly over-used maxim really treats that trees are cut down to make paper, which is correct, for a given value of both ‘trees’ and ‘correct’.

 

Paper, in its many guises, from that which you might reach for to blow your nose on when you have a cold; to your daily newspaper; the vast and varied wallpaper available at your local B & Q (or wherever – I have no interest to declare for that particular D.I.Y. emporium, it’s just that the name has become generic for such places here in the U.K.); to the cardboard box that your new 42” plasma screen HD ready television arrived in; to the microwaveable box that holds your ‘oven ready’ evening meal that you have to partake of because you spent so long reading the idiot guide that came with the new TV, that you haven’t time to cook any more!

 

Paper is all around us, and in everyday use, sometimes without realising it (what do you think of the woodgrain effect on your office desk or laminated flooring? I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff that it’s printed on paper which is then bonded to a wood substitute to look like ‘the real thing’) or simply taken for granted. Virtually all paper is made from naturally occurring cellulose fibres (linear polysaccharide of beta (1→4) linked D-glucose units, typified by the chemical symbol C₆H₁₀O₅ -n for the scientifically minded) and the greatest source of this material around the globe is naturally occurring wood, i.e. trees. Oh dear, already some readers are beginning to get steamed-up with images in their minds of the destruction of the tropical rain forest, but please, stay with me.

 

The second most important source of these cellulose fibres is recycled waste paper and board, which can be anything from yesterdays newspapers (no longer permitted for the wrapping of fish and chips in the U.K.) and that cardboard box that your 42” plasma T.V. came in that we met earlier. Also there are the ‘trade’ waste sources of recyclable paper and board, e.g. waste from printing companies, over-issue newspapers and magazines; plus there’s the endless barrage of ‘junk mail’ that daily falls (or should that be ‘pours’) through you letterbox, which you put to one side ready for your next trip to the municipal recycling centre, along with your empty wine bottles, baked bean tin (well steel actually) cans and lager cans (aluminium). Some Local Authorities do some of this work for you and have fortnightly collections of these valuable recyclable materials, but from a papermakers perspective there are dangers within that enterprise, of which more if you see me after.

 

There are many other naturally occurring sources of cellulose fibre across the globe, but their usage is dependant on locality, end-product, and guaranteed availability. So for the sake of this article, let us go back to the most general source, wood, or better yet, trees. Trees grow on virtually every continent on Earth (Antarctica excepted), and are of many and varied types – some yet to be discovered and identified. Of course, in The West, if you are doing one of those word association tests and the psychiatrist says ‘tree’ you might think of a majestic Oak, or a Horse Chestnut, or a Willow dangling its branches into the slowly drifting, crystal-clear waters of a country stream. Maybe even a pine tree, the Larch, the mighty Scots Pine.

 

If however your inquisitor was to say ‘tree for making paper’ in our metaphorical word association test, your mind will conjure-up those images of huge bulldozers ripping trees from the tropical forest, to the sound of huge chain-saws and their horrid rise and fall ‘burring’, drowning-out the shrieks of the displaced Gibbons and Orang-Utans, basically, the rape of Sumatra (ten years ago it would have been Amazonia but the focus has shifted though the problem in S.America remains and if anything has worsened!)

 

As far as making paper and board are concerned, the vast majority of trees ripped from the tropical rain forest are of little or no use for papermaking. They are hardwoods, harder even than Birch, Beech, even Eucalyptus, which (along with a few others) are what papermakers think of as hard woods. Tropical hardwoods, such as Mahogany, Walnut, Teak, Ipe, etc. are too hard, and can be up to 120 years old in those visions you have in mind, and to get that old they have grown relatively slowly and their cellulose fibres are short and very densely packed, which is what makes them hard woods. This is ideal for furniture, wall panelling, real wooden ‘parquet’ floors, and many other uses where quite often a non-tropical hardwood timber would do just as well, but hey, these tropical forest trees are just there, waiting to be ripped out of the ground or hacked down, anyway. Plus the Government can be ‘persuaded’ to give you a licence to level a given 5000 hectare patch of forest if the country is under the watchful eye of some bothersome NGO or bunch of tree-hugging hippies. And if no-one is looking, let’s go and cut them down anyway and hope we get away with it.

 

Those last few sentences were an attempt at irony, because even as someone from the paper industry at large, I have been a conservationist for longer than I have had pulp running through my veins, and conservation and papermaking are not oxymorons, in fact, the paper industry has been responsible for supporting and expanding much of the valuable work of organisations such as FSC, PEFC and SFI (see footnotes), work that identifies the source of the timber so long as it has been ethically ‘farmed’, from a conservation perspective, and NOT ripped from the loving embrace of an Amazonian or Borneo tribesman.

 

Trees used in papermaking are from the temperate regions of the globe, though there are pine and eucalyptus plantations in South America where once stood tropical rain forest, but it was destroyed for timber, or farming land for cattle rearing (so where did you think your Fray Bentos corned beef came from? Fray Bentos is a place, not just another trade name) or cash crops, all of which failed after a year or two because the soil is basically so poor (think of the roots of tropical trees that are so near the surface and spread over such a vast area), the rains came and washed away what little soil there was, and areas the size of Wales (slightly bigger than Whales which some wag complained of in a lecture on the subject I gave some years ago, saying, “Well, yes, I know hunting Whales is bad, but they’re not that big, and the Amazon Rain Forest is huge, so that can’t make a lot of difference!”) de-forested areas the size of Wales each year looked like turning into desert.

 

Then some Sylviculturalists (that’s Tree Scientists to you) came along and said “Why don’t we plant trees there that we can use, crop within just ten years or so, replant, and crop again, and so on? That way the soil gets enriched, we get trees for timber and papermaking, and a degree of habitat restoration is achieved. Plus, for every so many ‘farmed’ trees that have a relatively short cropping cycle, we will also plant ‘X’ many tropical hardwood trees, and even create ‘islands’ of such trees and ‘tree highways’ between them so the wildlife can resettle.” And here’s the ‘funny’ part, these tree lovers were not from WWF, Friends of the Earth, or Greenpeace – they were all too busy wringing their hands and weeping bitter tears rather than putting forward recovery plans — these ‘radical’ scientists were from pulp and paper companies! It worked too. Aside from the illegal logging that still goes on regardless in South America, dependant on whether the country in question is run by a questionable government, or whether or not the native Indians have shot the loggers first, aside from that, ‘tree farming’, inspected, approved and labelled by people like FSC, PEFC or SFI, is an environmentally and financially rewarding enterprise in South America.

 

In the Far East (Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo et al) the destruction of the rain forest and all the unbearable habitat and environmental problems that it brings, has nothing to do with the pulp and paper industry, although there is a question mark over that word ‘nothing’. Asia has a burgeoning population, a growing economy, and a huge demand for paper products. While most pulp and paper companies from that part of the World do not commission the felling of tropical forest, they do buy the wood from so-called middle-men, and thus they can be said to have ‘sap on their hands’ if not blood.

 

But we in The West are equally to blame because we continue to buy paper and goods made from paper and board that originates in these places (especially Indonesia), and thinking back to the cattle ranches that replaced the Amazon Rainforest, look for something called Palm Oil in the ingredients/contents of the products you buy each week at your local supermarket. Much of the areas denuded of tropical (hardwood) rainforest are being replanted with relatively fast growing palm trees, for the sake of the oil that is extracted from the ‘fruit’. Further, with the worry over climate change and the (debateable) effects that carbon-dioxide plays, there is an international demand for bio-fuels. For bio-fuels read diesel mixed with palm oil, and then read the article in the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/04/energy.indonesia. It will break your heart, and stop you worrying over-much about not using paper, and hopefully persuade you to only buy paper and paper products (and likewise timber and timber products) that carry the FSC, PEFC, or SFI logos, to say naught about dropping the pressure on governments to promote bio-fuels and go for Hydrogen Fuel-Cell technology instead!

 

Footnote:

FSC – Forest Stewardship Council:

FSC is an international, non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. It was founded in 1993 in response to public concern about deforestation and demand for a trustworthy wood-labelling scheme. There are national working groups in 28 countries. It is supported by NGOs including WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust.  www.fsc.org

 

PEFC – Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes:

The PEFC Council is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1999 which promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification. The PEFC provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that they are promoting the sustainable management of forests.
PEFC is a global umbrella organisation for the assessment of and mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes developed in a multi-stakeholder process. These national schemes build upon the inter-governmental processes for the promotion of sustainable forest management, a series of on-going mechanisms supported by 149 governments in the world covering 85% of the world’s forest area.   www.pefc.org

 

 

SFI (Sustainable Forest Initiative):

SFI, Inc. is a non-profit organization devoted to improving sustainable forest management in the US and Canada through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program. The SFI program is now fully independent. On January 1, 2007, a new, fully independent organization, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc. (SFI, Inc.) was created to direct all elements of the SFI® program.
This independence solidifies the SFI program’s strong market position as one of the world’s leading forest certification programs.

The multi-stakeholder Board of Directors of SFI, Inc. is the sole governing body over the SFI Standard and all aspects of the program, including chain of custody certification and labelling, marketing and promotion. The diversity of the board members reflects the variety of interests in the forestry community. Board representatives come from environmental and conservation organizations, public officials, professional and academic groups, forest products industry, independent logging professionals and forest landowners. This balance ensures that the SFI Program protects the economic, environmental and social needs of our forests and communities.  www.aboutsfi.org

 

There are many other initiatives aimed at the paper industry, from the EU Eco Label (EU Flower), the Nordic Swan, the German Blue Angel, the British NAPM Recycled Mark, and the European Grade Finders Recycled Content scoring system.