The first kind of paper was created in China, in about 100 CE. Since then, the paper industry has grown, and now paper is made in many sizes, colors, and textures. Paper is a material that is dominant in our every day lives, every year the United States alone uses over ninety million tons of paper a year. In 1993, the paper industry was worth $129 billion, and the value has only risen since. In the past forty years, worldwide consumption of paper has risen four hundred percent. Paper has many uses, but it mostly used as computer paper. There are several main components that go into the papermaking process.
The paper making process begins with trees, one of the most important ingredients. The trees used to make paper are chopped down and then debarked by a large machine that makes logs rub against each other in a rotating drum. While the logs rub against each other, the bark is removed. After that, the logs are cut into small chips to help the pulping process. Plant fibers from trees called cellulose are the main component of paper. Before cellulose can be used to make paper, it must be converted to pulp. The pulp is made by taking shredded plant fibers and adding water. The pulp is washed and cleaned and is then put in a beater to create a kind of slush. After this step, color dyes, coatings, clay, and other things are mixed in. Then the slush is pumped onto a moving screen, and the water is drained out and recycled. The pulp goes through several rollers to make sure all of the excess water is out, and to create the smooth paper texture. The paper is then packaged and sent out various places throughout the country. Trees are constantly being cut down in rainforests all over the world to meet the demand for paper worldwide. In The Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil, a million quare kilometer forest was reduced to less than fiver percent of its size due to logging. Cutting down trees is bad for the air and soil. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, which is valuable to our environment. Although deforestation is a controversial environmental issue, it actually accounts for less than ten percent of the wood pulp used to make paper. Most of the trees actually come from plantation forests, which is known as a monoculture, which degrades the soil and creates an ecological concern.
During the pulping process, the wood chips are soaked in several chemicals like sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfate. These chemicals help remove unwanted components from the wood chips. Although these chemicals may be harmful to the environment, more than ninety five percent of the chemicals are re-used. The main problem that arises during the pulping process is most of these chemicals produce by-products very harmful to the environment.
There are two different ways to pulp paper, one is known as mechanical pulping and the other is called Kraft pulping. There are environmental pros and cons to both methods. In mechanical pulping, the paper quality is lower, but much more of the wood is turned into usable pulp that will become paper. In Kraft pulping, only about half of the wood can be used but it is a more efficient process. Both types of processing are used depending on the type of paper being made.
During the manufacturing of paper, several major chemicals are put into the air. They are; nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). These chemicals are two of the major contributors to acid rain. Another by-product is CO2, which is famously known as a greenhouse gas that relates to climate change.
Paper mills are almost always located near large bodies of water because the process requires a lot of water to create the pulp. At the end of the paper making process, there is a large amount of waste water that is discharged and it is considered a pollutant. Dissolved organic materials can change the ecological make up of a body of water, and can sometimes lead to death of some organisms. Other compounds like phosphoreus can also alter the status of a natural water way.
Another main process relating to paper is paper recycling. There are three types of paper that are used in recycling; mill broke (scraps from the paper mill), pre-consumer waste (things disposed before consumers used them) and post-consumer waste (everything after consumer use, like old magazines). The EPA found that recycling causes thirty-five percent less water pollution and seventy-four percent less air pollution than creating new paper. The only problem with recycling is that the fibers used to make the paper pulp become degraded with each recycle, and can only be used four or five times.
My view on my impact has changed a lot from doing this research. I never realized that something as simple as the piece of paper this essay is written on has such a large environmental impact. The main problem is the high demand for paper and other mass produced objects. Although we may not see it, we impact the earth and drain it of so many different resources. Everything I do has some impact on the environment, no matter how eco-friendly I try to be. We can do our part by recycling, but even that isn’t a sustainable solution in the long run. As the woman in Dirt: The Movie said, “we can only do the best we can”. We can help minimize impacts by reducing our intake, and moving things to be digital.
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