Why recycling paper is bad

Trees have only been used on a large scale for papermaking since the second half of the 19th century. Provided they are grown in a sustainable and ecologically responsible way, trees are a valuable source of raw material for papermaking ….

Fertilisers, herbicides, insecticides and other pesticides are used to ensure a 'healthy' crop with consequent damage to the environment …. Don't trust the label 'made from sustainable forests' at face value. To be sure, specify FSC certified papers. The quality of recycled paper as well as new paper has benefitted from great improvements in papermaking technology over the last three decades.

Quality control is almost invariably computerised and subject to the strictest testing and checking. Many recycled coated and office papers are now indistinguishable from virgin equivalents, not just in their performance, but even in their appearance. Making recycled paper is more polluting than making new paper False! Most experts agree that recycling remains an important way to reduce litter and waste and to recover valuable materials, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving significant amounts of energy and water.

Here are some other things to keep in mind:. A whale shark swims beside a plastic bag in the Gulf of Aden near Yemen. Although whale sharks are the biggest fish in the sea, they're still threatened by ingesting small bits of plastic. Consumers in many areas no longer had to sort their recycling by the type of material, let alone by the color of the glass or the numbered category stamped on the bottom of plastics.

They could simply place all their recyclables into one container. That made things a lot easier for consumers. But it has also led to a significant amount of contamination—both in terms of damaged materials and unwanted stuff that gums up the works. Overzealous recyclers, in their desire to avoid waste, are too often tossing everything from banana peels to wooden picture frames to broken cellphones into blue bins, ignoring the posted rules.

As a result, the Container Recycling Institute points out that even though single-stream systems increase participation and reduce the costs of collection, they tend to cost an average of three dollars per ton more to maintain than dual-stream systems, in which paper products are collected separately from other items.

In particular, broken glass and plastic shards can readily contaminate paper, causing problems at the paper mill. Ditto for food grease and other chemicals. This includes such items as food waste, rubber hoses, wire, low-grade plastics, and many other items that overly hopeful residents toss in. Such materials waste hauling space and fuel, jam up machinery, contaminate valuable materials, and pose hazards to workers. In response to the problem, China, which takes in a significant portion of the recycling material collected in the U.

This was a particularly common refrain when I lived in Manhattan, where one can often see people rummaging through trash bins in search of anything with a little value.

Around the world, millions of people eke out a living collecting waste. They are often among the poorest and most marginalized citizens, yet they provide valuable services to society. Waste collectors reduce litter and the resulting risk to public health, and they contribute meaningfully to recycling efforts. Compare that to 75 percent for aluminum and 70 percent for cardboard in the U.

Around the world, studies show that more than three quarters of such waste pickers are actually selling their finds to established businesses within the recycling chain. So informal waste pickers are often working with formal enterprises, rather than competing against them.

I will be looking into the benefits and disadvantages of the whole process. Exposing the truth about recycling paper, you can make your own decision, after reading. We talk about reducing the demand for cutting down trees, as a benefit, but thousands of trees are grown on paper farms, for the purpose of creating paper. Recycling paper reduces the demand for trees, so potentially fewer will be planted on paper farms.

A whole range of chemicals are used to remove inks from the paper during the recycling process, this includes the use of chlorine and other detergents. Petroleum based inks also contain a variety of heavy metals and other compounds that require strong solvents to remove them.

The waste including the chemicals, metals and small fibres then makes its way into our water streams, or more often it is sent to our landfills. Around the world a high portion of paper that is recycled is deported to countries such as China or other Asian countries, and then reimported back as recycled paper. Using a lot of energy throughout the transportation process. Although clearcutting is the most common and economically profitable method of logging, there are many more impacts than simply the loss of trees.

These include habitat loss, soil erosion, flooding, negative impacts on scenery and a number of others. Whilst many tree farms replant these trees, the replanting often favors a single desirable crop for future harvest, rather than a natural diversity of trees that provide habitats for wildlife.

The first beating causes the fibrillation of the outside layer of the cell wall, it results in the formation of the mechanical felting and the chemical bonds between the fibres. The repeated beating and drying dues, except the continuing fibrillation of the layer, the successive fibrils peeling until the peeling of the primary and outside secondary layer of the cell wall.

It discovers the next non-fibriled layer S2 second, the biggest layer of the secondary wall what can do the tear index decrease. The next beating causes also this layer fibrillation, which leads to the increase of the strength value Fig.

The course of the breaking length decrease and the tearing strength increase of the paper sheet is in accordance with the results of Sutjipto et al. Oxidation of virgin fibre prior to recycling minimized the loss of WRV and sheet density. The beating causes the fibres shortening and fines formation which is washed away in the large extent and it endeds in the paper sludges. This waste can be further processed and effective declined.

Within theEuropean Union several already issued and other foreseendirectives have great influence on the waste managementstrategy of paper producing companies. Due to the large quantities ofwaste generated, the high moisture content of the wasteand the changing composition, some recovery methods,for example, conversion to fuel components, are simplytoo expensive and their environmental impact uncertain.

The thermal processes, gasification and pyrolysis, seem tobe interesting emerging options, although it is still necessaryto improve the technologies for sludge application.

Other applications, such as the hydrolysis to obtain ethanol,have several advantages use of wet sludge and applicabletechnology to sludges but these are not welldeveloped for pulp and paper sludges.

Therefore, at thismoment, the minimization of waste generation still hasthe highest priority Monte et al. Characteristic differences between recycled fibres and virgin fibres can by expected. Many of these can by attributed to drying. Drying is a process that is accompanied by partially irreversible closure of small pores in the fibre wall, as well as increased resistance to swelling during rewetting.

Further differences between virgin and recycled fibres can be attributed to the effects of a wide range of contaminating substances Hubbe et al. Drying, which has an anisotropic character, has a big influence on the properties of paper produced from the secondary fibres. During the drying the shear stress are formatted in the interfibrilar bonding area. The stresses formatted in the fibres and between them effect the mechanical properties in the drying paper. The additional effect dues the tensioning of the wet pulp stock on the paper machine.

During the drying and recycling the fibres are destructed. It is important to understand the loss of the bonding strength of the drying chemical fibres. Dang characterized the destruction like a percentage reduction of ability of the water retention value WRV in pulp at dewatering.

According to the prevailing concept, hornification occurs in the cell wall matrix of chemical fibres. During drying, delaminated parts of the fiber wall, i. Shrinkage of a fiber cross section Ackerman et al.

Hydrogen bonds between those lamellae also form. Reorientation and better alignment of microfibrils also occur. All this causes an intensely bonded structure. In a subsequent reslushing in water, the fiber cell wall microstructure remains more resistant to delaminating forces because some hydrogen bonds do not reopen.

The entire fiber is stiffer and more brittle Howard Irreversible hornification of fibers began on the degree of beating. In Figs. The fiber wall lamellae start to approach each other because of capillary forces. During this stage, the lumen can collapse.

With additional drying, spaces between lamellae continue shrinking to phase C where most free voids in the lamellar structure of the cell wall have already closed. Toward the end of drying in stage D, the water removal occurs in the fine structure of the fiber wall. Kraft fiber shrink strongly and uniformly during this final phase of drying, i. The shrinkage of stage D is irreversible.

At a repeated use of the dried fibres in paper making industry, the cell walls receive the water again. Then the opposite processes take place than in the Fig. The drying dues also macroscopic stress applied on paper and distributed in fibres system according a local structure. The basic properties of origin wet fibres change in the drying process of pulp and they are not fully regenerated in the process of slushing and beating.

The same parameters are suitable for the description of the paper properties of secondary fibres and fibres at ageing as well as for description of primary fibres properties. The experiences obtained at the utilisation of waste paper showed the secondary fibres have very different properties from the origin fibres.

Next recycling of fibres causes the formation of extreme nonhomogeneous mixture of various old fibres. At the optimum utilisation of the secondary fibres it need take into account their altered properties at the repeated use.

With the increase number of use cycles the fibres change irreversible, perish and alter their properties. Slushing and beating causes water absorption, fibres swelling and a partial regeneration of properties of origin fibres.

However the repeated beating and drying at the multiple production cycles dues the gradual decrease of swelling ability, what influences a bonding ability of fibres. With the increase of cycles number the fibres are shortened.

These alterations express in paper properties. The decrease of bonding ability and mechanical properties bring the improving of some utility properties. Between them there is higher velocity of dewatering and drying, air permeability and blotting properties improve of light scattering, opacity and paper dimensional stability. The highest alterations of fibres properties are at the first and following three cycles. Drying influences fibres length, width, shape factor, kinks which are the important factors to the strength of paper made from recycled fibres.

They measure fibres length, different kinks and their angles. Robertson et al. Among devices for analyse of fibres different properties and characteristics, e. At every measurement the minimum of 20 fibres in a sample is evaluated. On Fig. Influence of recycling number and drying temperature on length of softwood pulps.

Influence of recycling number and drying temperature on width of softwood pulps.