THE PAPER

First There Was Papyrus History of paper Paper Today s Effect on Environment Recycling of paper Some Interesting Facts

First There Was Papyrus

People had written even before paper was invented. They scratched on cave walls, painted too, and drew characters on wet clay. They even wrote on papyrus made from thinly-sliced papyrus reed which they glued together to make a sheet. Papyrus is made from the sliced sections of the flower stem of the papyrus plant, pressed together and dried, and then used for writing or drawing.

History of PAPER
Since the invention of writing people had been trying to come up with something easier to write on than papyrus or parchment, & also easier & cheaper to make. But it took 3000 years to come up with paper ! Paper seems to have been invented China. In 105 AD, around 100 BC in a government official in Chine named Ts`ai Lun was the first to start a paper making industry.

How paper is made?

Ts`ai Lun seems to have made his paper by mixing finely chopped mulberry bark & hemp rags with water meshing it flat, and then pressing out the water& letting it dry in the sun. He may have based his idea on bark cloth, which was very common in Chine & also made from mulberry bark. Ts`ai Lun`s paper was a big success & began to be used all over world.

Paper Today
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing, printing , drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets. Paper is a versatile material with many uses. Whilst the most common is for writing and printing , it is also widely used as a packaging material, in many cleaning products, in a number of industrial and construction processes, and even as a food ingredient particularly in Asian cultures.

Most people know that fibers from wood are needed to produce paper. But a paper only existing of fibers would not be able to be formed into a sheet. At least the presence of water in the paper sheet is necessary. Without water the individual fibers would not bind to each other and the sheet would disintegrate. Water is acting as a binding agent between the fibers by forming molecular bridges with hydrogen bonds. A hydrogen bond is a special type of dipole-dipole force that exists between an electronegative atom (the oxygen of the water molecule) and a hydrogen atom from another water molecule. This bond bridges the gap between electronegative atoms on the surface of one fiber to the other fiber.

Hydrogen bonds

Wood pulp is quite expensive and therefore it would be good to fill the sheet with a less expensive material . The fillers also reduce thickness and increase smoothness of the paper. During the forming process of the paper sheet on the paper machine the fibers need to be formed to the sheet. In order to prevent the fibers from flowing away with the removed water a special chemical, a retention aid, is used to bind the fibers to each other in the formed sheet. This chemical also increase dewatering speed and increases retention of the filler in the forming sheet.

Fibers within paper

Most paper have a color, even white papers are colored. Wood pulp is naturally somewhat yellow, this can be compensated by introducing blue and violet dyes into the wood pulp. In order to increase whiteness further fluorescent whitening agents are mixed in the pulp. Untreated wood pulp has a brown or brownish color and has to be bleached before it can be used to make white papers. Pulp can be bleached with chlorine or chlorine compounds, as well as with oxygen or hydrogen peroxide.

The fibers, untreated, would absorb a lot of water or solvents during for instance writing or printing processes on paper. To prevent this the papermakers mix sizing agents into the pulp. Also the surface of the formed paper is treated, mostly with a coating of starch (unmodified or modified) or with a coating with fillers and binders. Following raw materials used in papermaking will be described Fibers Water Fillers Retention aids Dyes Fluorescent whitening agents (FWA) Sizing agent Starch Wet strength agent Other auxiliary chemicals used to influence paper properties

Wood-free paper
Wood-free paper is paper created exclusively from chemical pulp rather than mechanical pulp. Chemical pulp is normally made from pulpwood, but is not considered wood as most of the lignin is removed and separated from the cellulose fibers during processing, whereas mechanical pulp retains most of its wood components and can therefore still be described as wood. Wood-free paper is not as prone to yellowing as paper containing mechanical pulp.

Tree-free paper
Tree-free paper describes an alternative to wood-pulp paper by its raw material composition. It is claimed to be more eco-friendly considering the product's entire life cycle. Sources of fiber for tree-free paper include: agricultural residues (i.e. sugarcane bagasse, husks and straw) fiber crops and wild plants, such as bamboo, kenaf, hemp, jute, and flax textiles and cordage wastes Non-fibersource include: calcium carbonate bound by a non-toxic high-density polyethylene resin.

Effect on Environment
The production and use of paper has a number of adverse effects on the environment which are known collectively as paper pollution. Pulp mills contribute to air, water and land pollution. Even paper recycling can be a source of pollution due to the sludge produced during deinking.

Air pollution Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are all emitted during paper manufacturing. Nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide are major contributors of acid rain, whereas CO2 is a greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.
Water pollution Waste water discharges for a pulp and paper mill contains solids, nutrients and dissolved organic matter such as lignin. It also contains alcohols, and chelating agents and inorganic materials like chlorates and transition metal compound. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can cause or exacerbate eutrophication of fresh water bodies such as lakes and rivers.

Deforestation
Deforestation is often seen as a problem in developing countries but also occurs in the developed world. Worldwide consumption of paper has risen by 400% in the past 40 years, with 35% of harvested trees being used for paper manufacture.

Recycling
Recycled paper is paper that contains fiber from waste paper. There are three categories of paper that can

be used as feedstock for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper, and is recycled internally in a paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material that was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use such as old magazines, old telephone directories, and residential mixed paper. One concern about recycling wood pulp paper is that the fibers are degraded with each and after being recycled four or five times the fibers become too short and weak to be useful in making paper.

Recycling of paper

Some interesting facts

Paper industry in India is the 15th largest paper industry in

the world. It provides employment to nearly 1.5 million people and contributes Rs 25 billion to the government's kitty. The government regards the paper industry as one of the 35 high priority industries of the country. On an average a tree produces 80,500 sheets of paper. About 324 liters water are used for producing 1kg of paper. 10,000 trees are used in China for producing holiday cards. Every ton of recycled paper save 17 trees.

42% of the industrial wood harvest is used to make paper.

40% of rubbish is paper. Making paper from raw materials we need to dispose of 84 pounds of air pollution, 36 pounds of water pollutants and 176 pounds of solid waste.