Recycled Paper – is it all that?
You would assume that reusing or recycling paper would be far better than simply dumping it all in a hole in the ground, wouldn’t you? But what about the energy used in collecting, transporting and recycling paper – is it really the greenest option?
In comparison to paper made from virgin fibre, the manufacture of 100% recycled paper can save 1.32 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of paper produced, fantastic!
The energy consumed by recycling paper instead of incinerating it (over it’s entire life-cycle – making paper from virgin timber then incinerating it (even taking into account that incinerating plants produce electricity)) consumes half as much energy. To give you a figure, 1 tonne of recycled paper requires 3-4,000 KWh less electricity to produce that paper from virgin fibre. That’s pretty much enough energy to power a typical 3-bed house for a year.
As if that wasn’t enough for you, the production of 1 tonne of recycled paper compared to virgin paper consumes around 30,000 fewer litres of water. That’s about half of your personal water consumption for the year.
Some of you may have heard rumours that recycled paper requires a lot of bleaching to make it whiter, therefore making it more polluting than virgin paper. The good news is that this isn’t true.
Most recycled paper requires little if any bleaching, some Paper Mills only accept unprinted or lightly printed waste paper (no need for bleaching) and other Mills clean their paper using ‘Dispersal’ (diluting the ink and dispersing it in the pulp – with no extra pollution) or ‘De-inking’ (ink is dissolved using a detergent and then scooped off the paper. Waste can then be turned into soil conditioner or safely disposed of).
Since its rise in popularity the quality of recycled paper has gone up and its price has gone down, this has led to a very minimal difference in price between recycled and virgin papers.
- Posted in Environment in Apr
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