The Green Paper Chase

Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 4, 1 November 1990, Page 46

The Green Paper Chase

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society is committed to recycling paper and making use of recycled paper if it is available and economically priced. At our Wellington head office we recycle most of the paper that is used; we are attempting to find a source of recycled paper for photocopying and once our present supply of letterhead has run out, we will reprint more stocks on recycled paper. Our newsletter Conservation News is published on 100 percent recycled New Zealand paper. Forest & Bird Magazine Many Forest and Bird members are attracted to the Society through its colour magazine, calendar, diary and posters; many more are influenced by them. Unfortunately, the high quality, clay-coated glossy paper stock required to reproduce our magnificent photographs has not to date been made with a significant proportion of recycled paper. Of those papers that do contain a proportion of recycled paper, the following problems make them difficult to work with: they have a low tensile strength for the high speed presses the magazine is printed on; and they tend to soak up more ink, leading to a loss of detail and a reduction in overall clarity. Paper mills are continuing to make progress on these aspects and it appears likely that a satisfactory glossy recycled paper will be available in the near future. Some members and the public are under the impression that glossy paper is made from tropical rainforest timber. That is not true: in the case of Forest & Bird, for example, our paper is sourced from sustainable-yield Scandinavian plantation forests. Questions have been raised over the dioxins produced by bleaching glossy paper. We are investigating the use of di-oxin-free paper for the magazine and have already used some for our last mail order catalogue and new membership application form (described as "environment friendly paper’’.)

Misleading Terms The word "recycled" can be misleading. There are two types of recycled paper: that produced from post-consumer waste, or that produced from pre-consumer waste. Post-consumer waste refers to paper that has been used and returned after recycling. It would have otherwise been dumped and is therefore the paper we would ideally like to use. Much of the high quality recycled paper available today contains little or no postconsumer waste. Instead it will usually be a combination of 50 percent virgin pulp, a proportion of paper mill waste and finally perhaps 10-15 percent of truly recycled material. Pre-consumer waste refers to paper that has never left a mill: it may be a reject batch, or offcuts. In the past this paper has been dumped, but with the increase in demand for recycled paper, mills have seen an opportunity to market this as "recycled" paper. From an environmental point of view, it is laudable that mills are no longer dumping the paper; however, it is not reducing the waste stream to the same extent as paper made from post-consumer waste. Overseas a labelling scheme is being developed to help clear up misconceptions. This will specify the percentage of new versus recycled fibre in the paper and the method of bleaching (or whether it is in fact unbleached).

The New Zealand Situation The only recycled paper we know of made in New Zealand is from NZ Forest Products. It is the same brown coloured paper that is used in Conservation News. The disadvantage of this paper is that it makes print harder to read and does not reproduce photos very well. It was also not developed as a printing but as a packaging paper. We have approached NZ Forest Products to ask them to produce white or off-white recycled paper. Their initial response was that the cost of a de-inking plant (approximately $100 million) could not be justified for the New Zealand market. We agreed but have asked them to produce non-de-inked paper — which would be acceptable to most. Members can be assured that Forest and Bird will be doing its best to keep up with the latest developments in recycled paper in order to reduce waste as much as possible.