ABOUT RECYCLED PAPER

The Circle of Healing was printed on Vanguard recycled Plus (90% post-consumer waste, plus 10% hemp, process chlorine free, printed with soy-based ink.)

Why is that important?
(Source: Conservatree.com)

Nearly half of all trees cut in North America go to paper making, which is the largest single user of wood. Trees are often cut for paper if they are too small for lumber. Although trees are a renewable resource, replanted trees in farms are usually monocultures, not true forests; they are dosed with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Tree plantations don't qualify as "sustainable," according to the Forestry Stewardship Council, since unlike a true forest, they do not regenerate themselves. Many trees planted by the paper industry do not survive to maturity. Meanwhile, forests are still being logged for paper.

"Recycled" paper which is not "post consumer waste" simply means paper made from mill-ends unusable for furniture or other wood products, as well as from paper scrap which has not yet reached the consumer.

"Post consumer waste" refers to paper which has been to the consumer and then recycled. One ton of 100% post consumer waste paper saves 17 trees, 4100 kwh of energy, 7,000 gallons of water, and keeps 60 lb. of pollution out of the air; it saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill. It decreases energy costs by 22 - 64% and uses 42% less water than virgin paper production. Due to economies of scale, it costs 7-10% more than comparable virgin paper. An increase in consumer demand will bring these costs down. Buying post consumer waste and process chlorine free paper encourages the mills to invest in the technology to provide those papers.

"Process chlorine free" refers to recycled paper which is unbleached or bleached without chlorine or chlorine derivatives. The paper it is made from may have been bleached originally; any virgin fiber used must be "total chlorine free" (no chlorine used in its manufacture). CF paper must contain at least 30% post-consumer content. If chlorine bleach is used, thousands of chlorinated organic compounds are released, many of which are untested. One of these organochlorines is dioxin, a potent carcinogen and mutagen that bioaccumulates in the food chain. Benign alternatives include hydrogen peroxide or oxygen bleaching.

"Total chlorine free" paper is virgin paper which uses benign alternatives for bleaching.

When paper is recycled, it's mashed into pulp made up of individual fibers, which get shorter and weaker each time they go through the recycling process. This makes it difficult to make 100% post-consumer recycled paper of high quality. But kenaf and hemp are grown specifically for their long and tough fibers; a small amount of these can extend the life of the recycled pulp and create quality papers. Hemp and kenaf are ecologically sustainable crops with many applications. They also require no bleaching because the fibers are naturally lighter than wood pulp. For thousands of years, paper has been made without use of wood, and many alternatives exist.

"De-inking" is necessary in recycling paper. It creates a sludge which may contain heavy metals and PCBs (from the inks) as well as organochlorines (from the chlorine in the original paper). If vegetable oil based inks instead of petroleum are used on the original paper, the sludge is less toxic. Caustics used for de-inking can be neutralized with hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, resulting in harmless salts. De-inking is still preferable to land filling or incineration of paper. Recycled paper requires less bleaching than virgin (wood-based) paper.

For more information on recycled paper, see GreenPressInitiative.org, Rethinkpaper.com, Woodwise.org, or Conservatree.com. For information on Vanguard Recycled Plus paper (90% post consumer waste, 10% hemp, process chlorine free, printed with soy-based ink), see LivingTreePaper.com.