The supply chain of the pulp manufacturing sector is one of the most resource-intensive of any industry.

Trees

Two out of every five trees cut in the world today are pulped for paper. (1)
Natural Forests

• Old growth forests worldwide are being logged for paper, with 9% of fiber derived from old-growth trees. (1)
• Logging causes habitat loss, soil erosion, and decreased water quality. (2)
• Trees store half the terrestrial carbon (7). Moreover, half the world’s forests have already been burned or cleared, and 80% of the remaining forests have been degraded. (3).

Tree Farms

• An area roughly equivalent to the size of Los Angeles, or about 333,600 acres (135,000 hectares), is converted to pine plantations each year in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi (4)
• Tree farms support 90% fewer species than the naturally occurring forests that preceded them. (5)
• Pine plantations do not retain carbon as efficiently as hardwood or natural pine forest. The increase in the number of pine plantations in the southern United States will likely contribute to more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in our atmosphere. (4)

Recycled Content

Even recycling paper requires significant processing, including shipping, sorting, de-inking, shredding, and bleaching. (2)

Water

Paper mills can contribute to water scarcity, and the withdrawal and return of large quantities of water can negatively affect aquatic ecology (6) Mill owners say they are unable to institute water conservation and recycling because the concentrated effluent would kill fish. (7)

Energy

Producing paper uses 11.5 percent of all energy in the industrial sector. Paper production is the third most energy-intensive of all U.S. manufacturing industries. (8)

Chemicals

Vast amounts of hazardous chemicals are required to prepare wood or recycled material for processing into paper. (2)

Kraft pulping, from which printing and copy paper comes from, uses less than 30% of the tree. The rest ends up as sludge which is burned, spread on land or landfilled. (2)

The paper industry is responsible for the release of persistent toxic pollutants like chlorine, mercury, lead and phosphorus into the environment, resulting in a legacy of health problems including cancers, nerve disorders and fertility problems. (9)

CITATIONS

(1) Wood Resources International, Ltd. Fiber Sourcing Analysis for the Global Pulp and Paper Industry . London: IIED, September 1996

(2) The Paper Task Force. White Paper No. 10A: Environmental Comparison—Manufacturing Technologies for Virgin and Recycled-Content Printing and Writing Paper. Environmental Defense: December 19, 1995. <http://www.environmentalpaper.com/documents/StateOfPaperIndSm.pdf>

(3) Bryant,D., D. Nielsen and L. Tangley. The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge. World Resources Institute, 1997. <www.globalforestwatch.org/english/pdfs/Last_Frontier_Forests.pdf>

(4) Songhen, Brent, Ohio State University and Brown, Sandra. “The Influence of Conversion of Forest Types on Carbon Sequestration and Other Ecosystem Services in the South Central United States.” Winrock International, December 15th 2004.

(5) Williams, Ted. 2000. “False Forests.” Mother Jones, May/June. <http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/05/false_forests.html>

(6) Freeman, Mary C. “Effects of Surface Water Withdrawals and Reservoirs on Stream Fishes in the Georgia Piedmont.” Proceedings of the 2005 Georgia Water Resources Conference, April 25-27, 2005. http://www.uga.edu/water/GWRC/Papers/freemanm_GWRCpaper1.pdf

(7) British Columbia COFI Pollution Prevention Workshop, June 1997, Environment Canada PPER Consultations, June 2000

(8) United States Department of Energy. “Forest Products: Industry of the Future.” Annual Report Fiscal Year 2004. Washington, D.C.: Industrial Technologies Program, 2005. <http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/about/pdfs/forest_fy2004.pdf>

(9) “Making Paper as if the Earth Matters.” Reach for Unbleached Foundation, 2005. <http://www.rfu.org/navigation/Librarydocs/MakingPaper.pdf>

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