The Bali Advertiser issue you’re holding in your hands feels different from a few months ago, although most readers can’t detect it. The newspaper had been printed on imported virgin paper for several years, but in June changed to a lighter, completely recycled, domestically produced paper. “I didn’t like the idea of trees being cut down just to print the Bali Advertiser,” says Pak Suena, the paper’s GM. Pak Suena also adds, “We’re proud to feature only recycled paper in the Bali Advertiser, making us the eco-friendly advertising choice in Bali.”
According to State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia’s rate of deforestation is now 1.08 million hectares a year, down from 1.8 to 2.8 million hectares between 1987 and 2000. Whether the trees are being felled for paper pulp or to make way for oil palm plantations, the grim fact remains that huge tracts of land are cleared every year, giving Indonesia the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s largest carbon emitters. The terrifying appetite of Indonesia’s giant pulp mills accounts for much of the devastation. Yet there are many excellent alternatives to using wood pulp to make paper, and Indonesia is well placed to make the move to non-wood paper.
Alternative fibres for paper reduce dependence on diminishing forests, increase the amount of materials that can be recycled and eliminate toxic pollutants.
Canadian chemical engineer Al Wong looks at a field of rice or wheat straw, and sees it converted to reams of high-quality paper. Instead of leaving agricultural straw to rot in the field or burning it off, it can be turned into agripulp using environmentally friendly technology. To ensure economic viability, he’s spent years developing a zero-emission mini-mill that can be built near production areas. Although it costs more to process agri-pulp using chlorine and effluent-free technologies, the price of straw is much less than sawmill chips or other wood sources. It also generates additional income for farming communities.
Having built such a mill that runs on wheat straw in Alberta, Canada , Al is now creating paper from hesperaloe, a perennial plant native to New Mexico which thrives in dry conditions. One kilogram of this unusual fibre replaces three to four kilograms of softwood pulp, and one hectare of hesperaloe replaces 50 hectares of arboreal forest. The plant is ready to harvest in 18 months.
So here’s a scenario. Start to diversify Indonesia’s paper industry by planting hesperaloe on marginal land on the dry islands east of Bali, and build zero-emission mini-mills to process it into paper. Create employment opportunities while adding value to a locally grown commodity without compromising the environment. Build the mills in rice and corn growing areas of Indonesia, too.
Besides agripulp, there’s a wide range of other alternatives available to manufacture paper. Bamboo, kenaf, hemp and sugarcane waste all offer many advantages over wood. All are easily and quickly grown and make paper of excellent quality. Hemp (used for cigarette paper) matures in three to four months, sugar cane once a year and the larger species like kenaf and bamboo can be harvested in three years. The cooking chemical and bleaching chemical requirements for non-wood species are lower than for wood fibres.
In India, the use of non-wood fibres for manufacturing paper started in 1880 when five small mills were built with grass and jute as the major raw materials. When it was established in 1922 that bamboo was very suitable for pulp and paper production, it soon accounted for about 75% of fibre sources. Because supplies were taken from natural bamboo forests instead of establishing managed plantations (when will they learn?), supplies declined to the point where wood began to be used for pulp in the 1970s. By 1995, less than half of India’s paper was derived from bamboo. Much of China’s paper is now made from bamboo, and plantations are being established to support the industry. It’s possible to retrofit Indonesia’s wood pulp mills to use bamboo instead. Another scenario worth looking at.
Kenaf (teal in Indonesian) is a member of the hibiscus family that’s exceptionally well suited to making paper pulp. In 1960, the US Department of Agriculture surveyed more than 500 plants and selected kenaf as the most promising source of ‘tree-free’ newsprint. In 1970, kenaf newsprint produced in a mill in Arkansas was successfully used by six US newspapers and kenaf paper has been available in the US since 1992. Kenaf newsprint makes stronger, brighter and cleaner pages than standard pine paper with less detriment to the environment. Due partly to kenaf fibers being naturally whiter than tree pulp, less bleaching is required to create a brighter sheet of paper. Hydrogen peroxide, an environmentally-safe bleaching agent that does not create dioxin, is used in the bleaching of kenaf. Various reports suggest that the energy requirements for producing pulp from kenaf are about 20 percent less than those for wood pulp, mostly due to the lower lignin content of kenaf. Many of the American mills that now process Southern pine for paper can be converted to use kenaf instead.
One acre of kenaf produces 7 to 11 tons of usable fiber in a single growing season. In contrast, an acre of forest in the US produces approximately 1.5 to 3.5 tons of usable fiber per year. It is estimated that growing kenaf on 5,000 acres can produce enough pulp to supply a paper plant having a capacity of 200 tons per day. Over 20 years, one acre of farmland can produce 10 to 20 times the amount of fiber than one acre of Southern pine. kenaf paper. The downside? Kenaf requires a lot of water.
Bagasse (sugarcane waste) makes good paper, but so much of it is used to fuel sugar mills that not enough is available for the pulp industry.
We’re probably still a long way from a sustainable paper industry in Indonesia, but meanwhile the Bali Advertiser has chosen the best option with recycled paper. During the paper crisis of the 1990s, the Java Post Group was concerned with procuring enough paper for its needs. The only Indonesian newsprint factory at that time had an export orientation, as it was not as profitable to serve the national market. The Java Post group built a paper recycling plant to ensure an independent source of newsprint to guarantee its supply. The first mill built in 1994 produced 150 tons of recycled paper a day, only enough to fill the group’s needs. In 2002 the mill was expanded to a capacity of over 250 tons a day.
Unfortunately, the mill needs 500 tons of used paper a day to meet its capacity, but only 10-15% can be secured locally. The balance has been imported from Europe, Japan and Singapore. Lately there have been supply problems as many paper industries in Europe and Japan have been forced to close or convert to recycled material and can no longer export to Indonesia. As supplies tighten and the cost of transport continues to rise, perhaps Indonesia will take the sustainable step of converting its agricultural waste into fields of reams.
Check out www.agripulp.com for progress on Al’s project.
