Environmental impact of paper

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The environmental impact of paper is significant, which has led to changes in industry and behavior at the business and personal levels. Using modern technology such as highly mechanical molding and wood harvesting, disposable paper becomes a relatively inexpensive commodity, leading to high levels of consumption and waste. Increases in global environmental issues such as air and water pollution, climate change, overflowing garbage disposal and logging have led to increased government regulation. Currently there is a trend towards sustainability in the pulp and paper industry as it moves to reduce clear cuts, water use, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel consumption and clean up its impact on local water supply and air pollution.

According to Canadian organizations, "People need paper products and we need sustainable and safe production for the environment."

Environmental product declarations or product score cards are available to collect and evaluate environmental and social performance of paper products, such as the Environmental Paper Assessment Tool (EPAT), or Paper Profile.

Both the US and Canada produce interactive maps of environmental indicators that show pollution emissions from individual facilities.

Video Environmental impact of paper

Issue

Pulp and paper mills contribute to air, water and soil pollution and paper and paperboard discharged to about 26% of solid municipal solid waste in landfills.

Pulp and paper produce the third largest amount of air, water and industrial land emissions in Canada and the sixth largest in the United States. By 2015, the industry releases 174,000 tons of emissions into the air, water and soil (or 5.3%) of the total 3.3 million tons of emissions issued by all industries in Canada. In the United States, the pulp and paper industry releases about 79,000 tonnes or about 5% of all industrial pollutant pollutants by 2015. Of the total waste spent by the pulp and paper industry in the US, 66% are released into the air, 10% into water and 24 % to land while in Canada, most of the waste (96%) is released into the air.

Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest energy consumer, accounting for four percent of all world energy use. However, the entire paper and printing sector contributes less than 1% to global greenhouse gas inventories due to the very high use of renewable energy, mostly biomass.

The pulp and paper industry uses more water to produce a ton of products than any other industry.

The de-inking process during paper recycling is also a source of emissions due to the chemicals released in the waste. The European Recovered Paper Council has developed a 'deferred scorecard' so that the best recycled paper products when they are approached can be identified.

Paper consumption worldwide has increased 400% in the last 40 years, with 35% of the trees being harvested for paper making. Plantation, from which much of the wood for pulp production is obtained, is generally monoculture and this raises concerns about the ecological effects of the practice.

Most of the wood harvested in North America goes to wood and other non-paper products. In the US, 36% of the annual harvest is used for paper and paperboard and in Canada 21% comes directly from the harvested tree. The rest comes from sawmill residue (55%) and recycled paper (24%).

Deforestation is often seen as a problem in developing countries but also occurs in developed countries. Woodchipping to produce pulp is a controversial environmental issue in Australia. In the 1990s, the New Zealand government stopped exporting woodchips from native forests after campaigning by environmentalists.

More than 6.5 million trees were cut down to make 16 billion paper cups used by US consumers only for coffee in 2006, using 4 billion gallons of US (15,000,000 m ³) water and generating 253 million pounds of waste. Overall, North America uses 58% of all paper cups, totaling 130 billion cups.

Air pollution

The US National Emissions Inventory and APEI Inventory in Canada compile annual air pollutant emissions that contribute to smog, acid rain, greenhouse gases and reduced air quality including particles (PM), sulfur oxides (SO _{x nitrogen oxides (NO _x), cadmium, lead, mercury, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins and furans, hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In addition, Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a publicly available database administered by the EPA TRI Program that tracks management in the US from certain toxic chemicals that can threaten human health and the environment.}

In the US, the total industrial release of toxic wastes into the air is 690 million pounds (313,000 tons) by 2015 and pulp and paper accounts for 20%. From the release into the air by the pulp and paper industry, 60% is a methanol that is not a persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemical and is not a carcinogen. Some PBTs are emitted by the pulp and paper industry at a measurable level, including lead, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), dioxin, furan and aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons. In Canada, industrial emissions are less than 2% of total emissions by 2015. In the US, the pulp and paper industry accounts for 22% of total HCB emissions, but other emissions of PBT are below 2% of the national total.

There are other important releases broadcast by the pulp and paper industry. The fine particles (PM _2.5) consist of particles with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less that can penetrate the respiratory system and have serious health effects. The pulp and paper industry in the US and Canada is responsible for about 10% of the industry PM _2.5. However, the majority of PM _2.5 in the air comes from non-industrial sources such as wood burning, construction and dust from unpaved roads and when these sources are taken into account, the pulp and paper industry in North America only generates about 0.5% of the total in 2014.

Nitrogen oxides (NO _x) sulfur oxides (SO _x) and carbon dioxide (CO ₂) are all emitted during the manufacture of pulp and paper. NOx and SOx are major contributors of acid rain and CO ₂ are the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. By 2014, the pulp and paper industry in North America is responsible for about 0.5% of total SO SO _x and NO _x releases from industry and non-industrial sources.

Water pollution

Waste water disposed for pulp and paper mills contains solids, nutrients and dissolved organic materials such as lignin. It also contains alcohols, and chelating agents and inorganic materials such as chlorates and transition metal compounds. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can cause or worsen eutrophication of freshwater bodies such as lakes and rivers. Organic matter dissolved in fresh water, measured by biological oxygen demand (BOD), changes the ecological characteristics. Waste water can also be contaminated with organochlorine compounds. Some of this is naturally occurring in wood, but chlorine bleaching from the pulp produces a much larger amount.

In Canada, the pulp and paper industry releases 5% of total industrial waste discharged into water by 2015. By 2014, 97.5%, 99.9% and 99.8% of waste samples from pulp and paper mills meet regulatory requirements for toxicity test on fish. , biochemical oxygen demand, and total suspended solids, respectively.

The pulp and paper industry is also linked to important emissions of heavy metals. In Canada, for example, this industry is the third leading source of emissions (Pb) for water In the US, the pulp and paper industry is responsible for 9% of the industry's release of water. By 2015, the pulp and paper sector ranks first in the amount equivalent to the toxic equivalent of toxic toxicity (TWPE) dumped into the water by industry. More than 92% of the TWPE comes from hydrogen sulphide, dioxin and dioxin and manganese (Mn) compounds and manganese compounds. Note that 7 pulp and paper facilities accounted for 80% of hydrogen sulphide discharged and 5 facilities accounted for 93% of dioxin depleted out of a total of 226 facilities. The last time the EPA reviewed the compounds Mn and Mn (2006), it was concluded that the effluent was below the treatable level. The rate of discharge has not changed significantly since then.

Recycling waste (see black liquor) and burning it, using bioremediation ponds and using less harmful agents in the pulp and bleaching process can help reduce water pollution.

Disposal can also change the color of the water that causes aesthetic loss. This has happened with the Tarawera River in New Zealand which came to be known as the "black sewer".

Paper Waste

Disposable paper and paperboard produces about 26% (or 67 million tonnes) of 258 million tonnes of solid city waste generated in 2014 and more than 14% of the 136 million tonnes of solid municipal solid waste ending in landfills by 2014. Waste paper, like other wastes, faces the danger of additional toxic inks, dyes and polymers that can be potentially carcinogenic when burned, or mixed with groundwater through traditional burial methods such as modern landfills. Paper recycling reduces this impact, but not the environmental and economic impact of energy consumed by manufacturing, transport and burial and/or paper product reprocessing.

Wood stripping

Chlorine-based and chlorine-based ingredients

Chlorine and chlorine compounds are used in bleaching wood pulp, especially chemical pulp produced by kraft or sulphite process. In the past, plants that use chlorine elements produce large amounts of dioxin, persistent and highly toxic organic pollutants. From the 1990s onwards, the use of chlorine elements in the delignification process was substantially reduced and replaced by the bleaching process of ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free) and TCF (Totally Chlorine Free). As a result, the production of dioxin also decreases significantly.

In 2005, the chlorine element was used in 19-20% of kraft pulp production globally, down from over 90% in 1990. 75% of kraft pulp using ECF, with 5-6% remaining using TCF. A study based on the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data concluded that "Waste studies from factories using oxygen delignification and elongation of delignification to produce ECF (chlorine-free elements) and TCF pulps show that the environmental effects of this process are low and similar. "Most TCF pulp is produced in Sweden and Finland for sale in Germany, all markets with high levels of environmental awareness. In 1999, TCF porridge represented 25% of the European market.

Bleaching of TCF, by removing chlorine from the process, reduces chlorinated organic compounds to the background level in pulp mill waste. ECF bleaching can substantially reduce but not completely eliminate chlorinated organic compounds, including dioxins, from waste. While modern ECF plants can achieve chlorinated organic emissions (AOX) of less than 0.05 kg per ton of pulp produced, most do not achieve this level of emissions. In the European Union, the emission of chlorinated organic compounds for ECF plants is 0.15 kg per ton.

However, there is disagreement about the comparative environmental effects of ECF and TCF bleaching. On the one hand, studies funded by the paper and chemical industry generally find that there is no environmental difference between ECF and TCF wastes. On the other hand, an independent peer-reviewed study has found that, comparing conventional effluents, ECF and TCF before and after secondary treatment, "TCF waste is the least toxic".

Sulfur, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide

Sulfur-based compounds are used in both kraft and sulfite processes to make wood pulp. Sulfur is generally recovered, with the exception of an ammonia-based sulfite process, but some are released as sulfur dioxide during burning of black liquor, a by-product of kraft process, or "red liquid" of the sulphite process. Sulfur dioxide is of particular concern because it is water soluble and is a major cause of acid rain. In 2006 the pulp and paper industry in Canada released about 60,000 tons of sulfur oxide (SOx) into the atmosphere, accounting for more than 4% of total SOx emissions from all Canadian industries.

The modern kraft pulp mill is more than self-sufficient in its electricity generation and will usually provide a clean energy flow to the local power grid. In addition, bark and wood residues are often burned in separate power boilers to produce steam.

The emission of hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulphide, dimethyl disulphide, and other volatile sulfur compounds is the cause of the odor characteristics of the pulp mill utilizing the kraft process. Other chemicals released into the air and water from most paper mills include the following:

carbon monoxide
ammonia
nitrogen oxide
mercury
nitrate
methanol
benzene
volatile organic compounds, chloroform.

Mechanical pulp bleaching is not a major cause for environmental problems because most of the organic material is retained in the pulp, and the chemicals used (hydrogen peroxide and sodium dithionite) produce benign byproducts (water and, ultimately, sodium sulphate, respectively).

However, the bleaching of chemical pulp has the potential to cause significant environmental damage, especially through the release of organic matter into waterways. The pulp mills are almost always located near large bodies of water because they need a lot of water for the process. Increased public awareness of environmental issues from the 1970s and 1980s, as evidenced by the formation of organizations such as Greenpeace, influenced the pulp-making industry and the government to address the release of these materials to the environment. Environmental NGO pressure is very intense on Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper companies.

Conventional bleaching uses chlorine elements to produce and release into the environment a large number of chlorinated organic compounds, including chlorinated dioxins. Dioxin is recognized as a persistent environmental polluter, regulated internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Dioxin is highly toxic, and health effects in humans include reproductive, developmental, immune and hormonal problems. They are known to be carcinogenic. More than 90% of human exposure is through food, especially meat, milk, fish and shellfish, as dioxin accumulates in the food chain in animal fat tissue.

GHG emissions

Globally, 69% of GHG comes from the energy and transportation industries. The global print and paper industry accounts for about 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the pulp and paper industry are generated from the burning of fossil fuels required for the production of raw materials and transportation, wastewater treatment facilities, purchased power, paper transportation, transportation of printing products, disposal and recycling.

Disposing of paper at landfill sites, and the destruction and production of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) also adds to the carbon footprint of paper products. This is another reason why paper recycling is beneficial to the environment. Paper recovery, instead of stockpiling can reduce the potential for global warming of paper products by up to 15 to 25%.

In paper and pulp mills in the US, the greenhouse gas emissions levels expressed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per tonne of production have been reduced by 55.8% since 1972, 23.1% since 2000, and 3.9% compared to 2010. Between 2005 and 2012, US paper and pulp mills bought energy (from fossil fuels) using per ton of production has been reduced by 8.8%.

In Canada, between 2000 and 2012, direct greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 56% and total energy use by 30%. Some of this decline is due to contraction of the forest industry but is largely due to reduced use of fossil fuels and an increase in self-generation of power from renewable biomass. Bioenergy accounts for 56% of the energy use of the forest industry in 2012, up from 49% in 2000.

Non-renewable resources

Clay or calcium carbonate is used as a filler for some paper. Kaolin is the most commonly used clay for coated paper.

Maps Environmental impact of paper

Mitigation

Some of the environmental impacts of the pulp and paper industry have been overcome and there is a movement towards sustainable practices. Using timber from plantations answers concerns about the loss of old forests.

Sustainable forest management

Cutting trees to make forest products like pulp and paper create long-term or temporary environmental disturbances in forest habitats depending on how carefully the harvest is done. There may be an impact on the biodiversity of plants and animals, soil fertility and water quality. However, sustainable forest management practices are a means of using and maintaining forests in order to maintain their environmental, social and economic value and benefits over time.

In the US, increasing demand for responsible paper produced financial incentives for landowners to keep their land forested and manage it sustainably - rather than selling it for industrial or residential development, a major cause of deforestation in the US, according to the US Forest Service. The managed land, in turn, provides a number of sustainable eco-system services, from clean water, healthy soil and climate change mitigation to recreational opportunities and aesthetic beauty.

In Canada, sustainable forest management is supported by the forest management planning process; science-based approach to decision-making, assessment and planning and regulations and policies.

Forest certification

Promoting and supporting forest certification and the ability to track the origins of wood fiber helps ensure sustainable forest management and legal logging. The most widely used forest certification systems are:

The Program for Certification of Forest Certification (PEFC), in most European countries and grown in other regions of the world.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI),

American Tree Farming System (ATFS)

Canadian Standards Association (CSA).

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Pemutihan bubur

Transfer to non-elemental chlorine for the bleaching process reduces emissions from carcinogenic organochlorines. Peracetic acid, ozone and hydrogen peroxide and oxygen are used in bleaching sequences in the pulp industry to produce chlorine-free paper (TCF).

Recycling

There are three categories of paper that can be used as raw materials for making recycled paper: cracking plants, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Broken mills are paper ornaments and other paper scrap from paper making, and are recycled internally in paper mills. Pre-consumer waste is a discarded material before it is ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is a material that is discarded after use by consumers such as old magazines, old phone directories, and mixed housing paper.

One concern about recycling wood pulp paper is that the fibers are degraded with each and after recycling four or five times the fibers become too short and weak for use in paper making.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has found that recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper. Pulp mills can be a source of air and water pollution, especially if they produce bleached pulp. Paper recycling reduces the demand for virgin pulp and thereby reduces the overall amount of air and water pollution associated with paper making. Recycled pulp can be bleached with the same chemicals used to whiten virgin pulp, but hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydrosulfite are the most common bleach ingredients. Recycled pulp, or paper made from it, is known as PCF (free chlorine process) if no chlorine-containing compound is used in the recycling process.

Recycled paper and paper mills

Recycling as an alternative to the use of landfills and recycled paper is one of the less complicated procedures in the recycling industry. Although there is no landfill crisis at the moment, it is generally believed that action should be taken to reduce the negative impacts of landfills, as many harmful elements are generated and distributed because of this waste enclosure. Most recycled paper is priced higher than newly created paper, and this tends to play a decisive factor for consumers. Since most of the recycled pulp is bought on the open market, virgin paper is produced cheaper with pulp made by specialty paper mills. Virgin paper does not contain recycled content and is made directly from the pulp of trees or cotton. Material recovered after the initial papermaking process is considered recycled paper. Since the original standard is so vague, some "recycled paper" contains only remnants of the factory that will be inserted into virgin paper. A recent standard is set to prevent companies from making it look like they are selling recycled paper. The collection and recycling industry has been glued to pieces of paper that customers throw away every day to increase the amount of recycled paper. Different paper mills are arranged for different types of paper, and most "recovered office paper can be sent to the ink removal plant". The ink removal plant functions as a step in the recycled paper process. This type of factory releases ink from paper fibers, along with other excess materials that are also removed from the remaining paper. In the ink removal plant, after all unwanted paper layers are stripped, the refurbished paper is sent to the paper machine. The old traces are now built into new paper on paper machines. Many paper manufacturers have recycled business paper by converting old business paper into letters and profitable envelopes. The production process of recycled paper is more expensive than a well developed paper mill that makes paper by using trees. The process of recycling paper making is also much more time consuming. However, recycled paper has many benefits from an environmental perspective. "For all state-of-the-art technologies now incorporated into modern paper mills, the basic structure of the industry is still based on a transformative world view in the 19th century but is outdated as a 21st century approach."

Rule

Pulp and paper is a highly regulated industry in North America. US and Canadian regulations are summarized below.

United States

Air and water pollution

The EPA first issued a national waste water standard, known as an effluent guideline, for a pulp and paper mill in 1974, under the Clean Water Act. This body establishes numerical limits for some conventional pollutants. In 1982, the EPA changed the regulation with numerical limits for pentachlorophenol, trichlorophenol and zinc. Limited waste is implemented in the National Pollution Disposal System permit (NPDES), which is renewed every five years. ( View United States regulations on water source pollution.)

EPA's 1998 "Cluster Rule" (CR) discusses additional toxic wastewater pollutants, and regulates the emissions of harmful air pollutants as well. Because air and water regulations are addressed in the same regulatory action, the EPA allows pulp and paper mills to choose the best combination of air and water pollution prevention technologies rather than handling one by one. Some requirements and technologies designed to reduce toxic air pollution also reduce toxic waste water pollution and otherwise . The purpose of the EPA in disseminating CR is to provide a coordinated set of regulatory requirements, thereby increasing clarity for the industry as it works to achieve compliance, and achieving greater levels of pollution prevention.

The air emission regulations in CR, the components of the National Emissions Standards for Harmful Air Pollutants (NESHAP) under the Clean Air Act, became effective in 2001. The regulation, also known as "Maximum Achievable Control Technology" (MACT), applies to factories using chemical pulping and calls for harmful air pollutants to be reduced by 59% and volatile organic carbon and particles to be reduced by 49% and 37%, respectively. The CR wastewater regulations apply to plants that incorporate chlorine bleaching with kraft chemical pulping and aim to reduce the disposal of dioxin, furan, and chloroform by 96%, 96%, and 99%, respectively. The EPA adds numerical effluent restrictions to 12 chlorinated phenolic pollutants and the adsorbed organic halide (AOX). The regulation also requires industries to implement best management practices, such as monitoring process control.

All air emissions in the US are set at the federal level. The Clean Air Act establishes the National Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for pollutants that are harmful to public health and the environment. Standards have been established for six major pollutants: lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide (NO ₂), ozone (O ₃), particulate matter (PM) and sulfur dioxide (SO ₂). The EPA revised the NESHAP regulations for the pulp and paper industry by 2012.

Forest management

Laws, regulations and policies that guide forest management in US federal lands are well documented. The Lacey Act of 1900 provides sanctions for illegal logging.

Canada

In Canada, federal and provincial environmental legislation is the main source of regulation for pulp and paper mills. The following three federal regulations are related to water emissions:

Pulp and Paper Waste Regulations: set standards for acute lethal levels for fish, biochemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids. Mills is also required to monitor the environmental effects to determine the impact of their waste on water reception and investigate the causes, and solutions for, environmental effects associated with factory waste.
Pulp and Paper Mill Effluent Chlorinated Dioxins and Furans Regulations: published under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and applicable to polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans in factory waste.
Pulp and Paper Mill Defoamer and Wood Chip Regulation: regulates the use of a dibenzofuran or dibenzo-para-dioxin-containing foam prevention in pulp and paper mills using a chlorine bleaching process.

There are also applicable regulations to control the release of contaminants into the air, including elementary and ground level ozone and this includes the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards Act. At the federal level, the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has publicly accessible and publicly accessible pollution contamination emissions for air, water and land, and disposal and recycling, the National Pollutant Release Inventory, which companies must report annually. Facility operators meeting the reporting criteria are required to report GHG emissions facilities (ECG) to the ECCC each year.

Some provinces have their own regulatory framework to manage air quality such as the standards of the province of Ontario, as well as to control greenhouse gas emissions including the British Columbia Carbon Tax, the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan, and the Ontario and Quebec Control and Commerce System.

In Canada, where 94% of state forests are on public land, federal, provincial and district legal frameworks, regulations and policies uphold and guide sustainable forest management practices.

International

"The Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines are technical reference documents with general and industry-specific examples of Good International Industrial Practice (GIIP)." In simpler terms, EHS is what helps develop federal regulations on industries and companies that require factories that have the potential to generate significant harm to society and the environment. This environmental, health and safety manual includes specific rules for the paper mill industry that explain what they must follow to limit the pollution that is distributed consequently and by the factory.

Mechanical slurry factory

Wood pulp produced primarily by grinding wood is known as "mechanical slurry" and is used primarily for newsprint. This mechanical process uses fewer chemicals than a kraft or sulfite plant. The main source of pollution from these factories are organic materials such as resin acids that are removed from wood when processed. Mechanical wood pulp is "brighter", compared to bleaching, using fewer toxic chemicals than necessary for chemical pulp.

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Ink

The three main problems with the environmental impact of printing inks are the use of volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and non-renewable oils. The standard for the amount of heavy metals in ink has been set by some regulatory bodies. There is a tendency to use vegetable oil rather than petroleum oil in recent years due to the demand for better sustainability.

Deinking recycled paper pulp in a waste slurry that can go to landfill. De-inking at the Miami, Ohio plant in Miami, in the United States yields a weight of 22% of the weight of recycled waste.

In the 1970s federal regulations for ink in the United States regulated the use of toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, selenium, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium.

EA Curriculum in Academic and Training Courses in India : - ppt ...

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References

Domtar's 'Paper Trail' Wins Environmental Strategy of the Year ...

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External links

Canopy | Ecopaper Database

Source of the article : Wikipedia

Environmental impact of paper

Selasa, 12 Juni 2018

Environmental impact of paper

Video Environmental impact of paper