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So where does it come from? Most people can guess that trees are the staple of any paper product. But did
you know that until the middle of the 19th century, the main ingredient of paper was cloth rag? And while trees
have since become a vital component in the creation of paper, many manufacturers today are beginning to use
recycled waste combined with tree pulp to decrease the number of trees that need to be cut down and keep up
with the growing demand for paper. Also, many environmentalists who believe that the world's forests are be-
ing cut down faster than they can grow are pointing to the continued success of wood-free paper made with
other plants such as hemp and a similarly fibrous plant called kenaf.
Following is a brief history of paper along with the details of how the modern industry works and a few
suggestions for making paper without cutting down so many trees.
The first paper-like substance was invented by the Egyptians over 6,000 years ago. Papyrus, which is the
root of our English word "paper", was made by weaving reeds or other fibrous plants together and pounding
them into a flat sheet. The Greeks and the Romans also used this technique, although some Ancient Greek pa-
per makers were the first to create a kind of parchment paper made out of animal skins. Chances are, Aristotle,
Socrates and other Greek philosophers originally wrote their books on the skins of dead cows.
But paper as we know wasn't made until 105 AD, when a Chinese court official named Tsai Lun mixed
mulberry bark and hemp with water and scraps of cotton and linen cloth (i.e. rags). This concoction was
mashed into a pulp and pressed into mats that were left in the sun to dry. Rags, as it turns out, would be used as
the basis for paper for the next 1700 years.
As the Chinese culture flourished and expanded to the edges of the Asian continent, paper went along with
it, first to Korea and Japan and then to the Arab world, which included Egypt and Morocco. Yet, it wasn't until
1009 AD that paper making reached Europe by way of Spain, where the first European paper mill was set up by
Arabs in Xativa, near the Mediterranean port city of Valencia.
After that, the Italians and the French became notable paper makers and dominated the paper industry in
Europe from 1250 to 1470 AD. After the invention of the moveable type printing press (link) in 1453 by the
German inventor Johannes Gutenberg and the subsequent boom in literacy rates in the 16th century, paper for
books grew in demand. Paper mills began opening all over the European continent and eventually reached the
new world where the first American paper mill opened in Philadelphia in 1690. That increase in demand and
the upsurge in papermaking began to tax the raw materials used to make paper (which was still largely made
with rags) and manufacturers began searching for alternatives. Yet, it was not until 1843 that ground-wood (or
pulp) harvested from trees became the papermakers’ material of choice.
Today, the world consumes about 300 million tons of paper each year. Most of that paper is made from
virgin pulp, but recycled paper accounts for 38 % of the world's total fiber supply and non-wood fibers from
plants like hemp or kenaf make up 7 %. The U.S., which contains only 5 % of the world's population, uses 30
% of all paper. In that country, the forest and paper products industry generates $200 billion dollars in sales
every year, accounting for 7 % of the total manufacturing output of the United States. About 28 % of all wood-
cuts in the U.S. are used for papermaking and according to a 2000 report by PaperCom Alliance the demand for
paper worldwide has grown 30 % in the past 6 years and is projected to grow even more.
Having come a long way from using rags and mulberry bark, papermaking has become a sophisticated sci-
ence. Once a tree is cut down, it goes to a mill where it is debarked and then chipped into tiny fragments by a
series of whirling blades. These fragments are then "cooked" in a vat with water and several chemicals, includ-
ing caustic soda and sodium sulfate, to make gooey slurry known as pulp. In the final stages, additives such as
starch, China clay, talc and calcium carbonate, are added to the pulp to improve the strength and brightness of
the paper. Then the pulp is bleached to a white color using water and chlorine before being pressed into rolls
and dried.
Unfortunately, the paper making process is not a clean one. According to the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory
report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pulp and paper mills are among the worst pol-
luters to air, water and land of any industry in the country. The Worldwatch Institute offers similar statistics for
the rest of the world. Each year millions of pounds of highly toxic chemicals such as toluene, methanol, chlo-
rine dioxide, hydrochloric acid, and formaldehyde are released into the air and water from paper making plants
around the world.
Paper making also uses up vast quantities of trees. But trees are a renewable resource, which means that
once one is cut down another can be planted in its place. In fact, much of the wood used by paper companies in
the U.S. comes from privately owned tree farms where forests are planted, groomed and thinned for harvest in
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