Paper recycling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paper recycling is the process of turning waste paper into new paper products. There are three categories of
paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and
post-consumer waste.
[1]
Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper,
and is recycled internally in a paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material which left the paper mill but was
discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use,
such as old corrugated containers (OCC), old magazines, old newspapers (ONP), office paper, old telephone
directories, and residential mixed paper (RMP).
[1]
Paper suitable for recycling is called "scrap paper", often
used to produce molded pulp packaging. The industrial process of removing printing ink from paperfibers of
recycled paper to make deinked pulp is called deinking, an invention of the German jurist Justus Claproth.
Paper recycling process
The process of paper recycling involves mixing used paper with water and chemicals to break it down. It is then
chopped up and heated, which breaks it down further into strands of cellulose, a type of organic plant material;
this resulting mixture is called pulp, or slurry. It is strained through screens, which remove any glue or plastic
that may still be in the mixture then cleaned, de-inked, bleached, and mixed with water. Then it can be made
into new recycled paper.
[2]
The same fibers can be recycled about seven times, but they get shorter every time
and eventually are strained out.
[3]
Rationale for recycling
Industrialized paper making has an effect on the environment both upstream (where raw materials are acquired
and processed) and downstream (waste-disposal impacts).
[4]
Today, 90% of paper pulp is created from wood ( in most modern mills only 9-16% of pulp is made from pulp
logs the rest from waste wood that was traditionally burnt). Paper production accounts for about 35% of felled
trees,
[5]
and represents 1.2% of the world's total economic output.
[6]
Recycling one ton of newsprint saves
about 1 ton of wood while recycling 1 ton of printing or copier paper saves slightly more than 2 tons of wood.
[7]
This is because kraft pulping requires twice as much wood since it removes lignin to produce higher quality
fibres than mechanical pulping processes. Relating tons of paper recycled to the number of trees not cut is
meaningless, since tree size varies tremendously and is the major factor in how much paper can be made from
how many trees.
[8]
Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 16% of world pulp production, old
growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more generation forests account for the balance.
[5]
Most pulp mill
operators practice reforestation to ensure a continuing supply of trees. The Programme for the Endorsement of
Forest Certification (PEFC) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certify paper made from trees harvested
according to guidelines meant to ensure good forestry practices.
[9]
It has been estimated that recycling half the
worlds paper would avoid the harvesting of 20 million acres (81,000 km) of forestland.
[10]
Energy
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Energy consumption is reduced by recycling,
[11]
although there is debate concerning the actual energy savings
realized. The Energy Information Administration claims a 40% reduction in energy when paper is recycled
versus paper made with unrecycled pulp,
[12]
while the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) claims a 64%
reduction.
[13]
Some calculations show that recycling one ton of newspaper saves about 4,000 kWh (14 GJ) of
electricity, although this may be too high (see comments below on unrecycled pulp) ( recycling paper also
produces no free energy in the way of process steam or recovery steam thus making it more expensive to
recycle paper than to make new paper). This is enough electricity to power a 3-bedroom European house for an
entire year, or enough energy to heat and air-condition the average North American home for almost six
months.
[14]
Recycling paper to make pulp actually consumes more fossil fuels than making new pulp via the
kraft process; these mills generate most of their energy from burning waste wood (bark, roots, sawmill waste)
and byproduct lignin (black liquor).
[15]
Pulp mills producing new mechanical pulp use large amounts of energy;
a very rough estimate of the electrical energy needed is 10 gigajoules per tonne of pulp (2500 kWh per short
ton).
[16]
Landfill use
About 35% of municipal solid waste (before recycling) by weight is paper and paper products.
[17]
Water and air pollution
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that recycling causes 35% less water
pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper.
[18]
Pulp mills can be sources of both air and water
pollution, especially if they are producing bleached pulp. Modern mills produce considerably less pollution than
those of a few decades ago. Recycling paper decreases the demand for virgin pulp, thus reducing the overall
amount of air and water pollution associated with paper manufacture. Recycled pulp can be bleached with the
same chemicals used to bleach virgin pulp, but hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydrosulfite are the most
common bleaching agents. Recycled pulp, or paper made from it, is known as PCF (process chlorine free) if no
chlorine-containing compounds were used in the recycling process.
[19]
However, recycling mills may have
polluting by-products like sludge. De-inking at Cross Pointe's Miami, Ohio mill results in sludge weighing 22%
of the weight of wastepaper recycled.
[20]
Recycling facts and figures
In the mid-19th century, there was an increased demand for books and writing material. Up to that time, paper
manufacturers had used discarded linen rags for paper, but supply could not keep up with the increased demand.
Books were bought at auctions for the purpose of recycling fiber content into new paper, at least in the United
Kingdom, by the beginning of the 19th century.
[21]
Internationally, about half of all recovered paper comes from converting losses (pre-consumer recycling), such
as shavings and unsold periodicals; approximately one third comes from household or post-consumer waste.
[22]
Some statistics on paper consumption:
The average per capita paper use worldwide was 110 pounds (50 kg).
[23]
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It is estimated that 95% of business information is still stored on paper.
[24]
Recycling 1 short ton (0.91 t) of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7 thousand US gallons (26 m
3
) of water, 3
cubic yards (2.3 m
3
) of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil (84 US gal or 320 l), and 4,100 kilowatt-hours
(15 GJ) of electricity enough energy to power the average American home for six months.
[25]
Although paper is traditionally identified with reading and writing, communications has now been
replaced by packaging as the single largest category of paper use at 41% of all paper used.
[26]
115 billion sheets of paper are used annually for personal computers.
[27]
The average web user prints 28
pages daily.
[28]
Most corrugated fiberboard boxes have over 25% recycled fibers. Some are 100% recycled fiber.
Recycling one ton of paper saves roughly 17 trees.
[29]
In 1997, 299,044 metric tons of paper was produced (including paperboard).
[30]
In the United States, the average consumption of paper per person in 1999 was approximately 354
kilograms. This would be the same consumption for 6 people in Asia or 30 people in Africa.
[29]
In 2006-2007, Australia 5.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard was used with 2.5 million tonnes of this
recycled.
[31]
Newspaper manufactured in Australia has 40% recycled content.
[32]
Paper recycling by region
European Union
Paper recovery in Europe has a long history and has grown into a mature organization. In 2004 the paper
recycling rate in Europe was 54.6% or 45.5 million short tons (41.3 Mt).
[33]
The recycling rate in Europe
reached 64.5% in 2007, leaving the industry on track to meeting its voluntary target of 66% by 2010.
[34]
Japan
Municipal collections of paper for recycling are in place. However, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, in 2008,
eight paper manufacturers in Japan have admitted to intentionally mislabeling recycled paper products,
exaggerating the amount of recycled paper used.
United States
Recycling has long been practiced in the United States. The history of paper recycling has several dates of
importance:
1690: The first paper mill to use recycled linen was established by the Rittenhouse family.
[35]
1896: The first major recycling center was started by the Benedetto family in New York City, where they
collected rags, newspaper, and trash with a pushcart.
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1993: The first year when more paper was recycled than was buried in landfills.
[36]
Today, over half of all paper used in the United States is collected and recycled.
[37]
Paper products are still the
largest component of municipal solid waste, making up more than 40% of the composition of landfills.
[38][39]
In
2006, a record 53.4% of the paper used in the US (or 53.5 million tons) was recovered for recycling.
[40]
This is
up from a 1990 recovery rate of 33.5%.
[40]
The US paper industry set a goal of recovering 55 percent of all
paper used in the US by 2012. Paper products used by the packaging industry were responsible for about 77% of
packaging materials recycled, with more than 24 million pounds recovered in 2005.
[41]
By 1998, some 9,000 curbside recycling programs and 12,000 recyclable drop-off centers existed nationwide.
As of 1999, 480 materials recovery facilities had been established to process the collected materials.
[42]
In 2008, the global financial crisis caused the price of old newspapers to drop in the U.S. from $130 to $40 per
short ton ($140/t to $45/t) in October.
[43]
Every year, the city of Phoenix, America recycles 100,000 tons of paper and paper-related products.
[29]
Mexico
In Mexico, recycled paper, rather than wood pulp, is the principal feedstock in papermills accounting for about
75% of raw materials.
[44]
See also
Baler
Banana paper
Deinked pulp
Enviroboard
Molded pulp
Paper shredder
Stickies (papermaking)
Tree-free paper
USPS Post Office Box Lobby Recycling program
References
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^ Data on Paper Recovery (http://stats.paperrecycles.org/index.php?graph=corrcont&x=37&y=9) 41.
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This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document
"http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/recycle.htm".
External links
Paper recycling (http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Environment/Waste_Management/Recycling/Paper/) at
DMOZ
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Paper and Paperboard Products (http://www.epa.gov/garbage
/paper.htm)
How to Make Recycled Paper (http://www.opentutorial.com/Make_recycled_paper) A tutorial for
making your own recycled paper
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paper_recycling&oldid=612669883"
Categories: Paper recycling Water conservation
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