Industry group raises paper’s profile

With a recent survey of print buyers revealing negative attitudes towards the environmental impact of paper products, a UK trade body has launched an initiative to address the criticisms, writes James Quirk.

The paper industry is facing criticism from some environmentalists who point to shrinking forests, excessive energy consumption and overflowing landfill sites. With around half the labels printed globally using paper, this has important ramifications for label converters and end users.

The UK-based National Association of Paper Manufacturers (NAPM) last year commissioned a survey of print buyers, 80 percent of whom said that environmental considerations play a role in their paper purchasing decision. Worryingly for the paper industry, almost half of respondents believed that paper production is a major cause of deforestation and has a negative impact upon the environment. A further 70 percent believed that recycled paper is better than virgin fiber grades and 58 percent admitted they do not know enough about paper’s carbon footprint and environmental impact to make purchasing decisions.

‘For some years now, we have become increasingly frustrated at the barrage of misleading information that continues to hit the headlines regarding the impact of paper on the environment, which has adversely affected the print and paper industries,’ said Alistair Gough, president of the NAPM and managing director of Robert Horne Group. ‘Despite all the misconceptions, there are two sides to every story and paper as a product has a great environmental story to tell.’

The NAPM has embarked upon an initiative called ‘Two Sides’ to combat what it sees as the ‘myths’ surrounding paper production, starting with the ‘destruction of forests.’ The NAPM points out that papermaking and other industries which depend on trees need thriving forests. In managed forests, for every tree cut down, three to four are replanted. Even in countries where natural forests are used, like Russia and Canada, logging accounts for only a tiny share of annual tree growth, says the NAPM.

The NAPM estimates that there are 25 percent more trees in the developed world today than there were in 1901, and in Europe alone forests are increasing annually by an area equivalent to more than 1.5 million football pitches.

Deforestation is happening in the tropics, but this is mainly caused by agriculture or the need for domestic fuel, which between them account for almost half of the trees cut down worldwide. This is often associated with conflicts over land rights and the conversion of natural forest to industrial plantations.

‘The Two Sides initiative supports a reduction in such activity and recognizes the need to support products which can clearly be traced to sustainable sources,’ says the NAPM.

Energy and emissions

Turning its attention to paper’s energy and emissions impact, the NAPM report says that it takes on average 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity to produce 200kg of paper – the average person’s annual consumption. This is equivalent to the energy consumed by a typical household leaving its electronic equipment on stand-by for a year.

Producing this amount of paper creates between 130–250kg of CO2 annually, depending on the source of energy, says the NAPM, and this is roughly equivalent to the CO2 produced by an average family car over a distance of 600 miles. Nuclear, hydro, biofuel and geothermal energy are all heavily used by paper making countries and are all claimed to be low carbon energy sources. At the same time, young, growing trees are prime absorbers of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and this CO2 remains ‘locked’ inside paper products for as long as they remain in use, or when they are recycled.

The NAPM says recycled paper is not necessarily more environment friendly than virgin paper. A modern paper mill producing virgin fiber paper using nuclear, hydro or internally bio-fuelled may well have a lower carbon footprint than a mill making recycled paper powered by fossil fuels. A good supply of virgin materials is also critical to retain a recycled paper supply, as paper fibers cannot be recycled more than six times.

The average recycling rate across European countries is over 62 percent, representing more than 50 million tonnes of used paper collected each year.

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