At the Paper Mill
The pulp and paper industry is the single largest industrial consumer of water and uses more water to produce a tonne of product than any other industry on the planet. With experts predicting that in the next 50 years wars will be fought over water instead of oil, how long can we keep using so much water in industries like paper manufacture.
The industry is also the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter, with only the chemical and steel industries responsible for greater emissions on an annual basis.
Producing one tonne of paper requires 2-3 tonnes of timber, as the entire tree can not be used, for example: hard knots of wood within the tree are not suitable for paper manufacture.
Recycled paper uses much less energy to produce but the energy used to make recycled paper is typically derived from fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. Whereas virgin fibre production often uses the waste by-products of timber processing.
In order to produce white recycled paper the printing ink has first to be removed, a process known as de-inking. Creating recycled paper produces a sludge and traditionally, this waste sludge has been consigned to landfill, although is occasionally incinerated.
It is thought de-inking sludge may contain low concentrations of heavy metals - cadmium, lead, chromium and nickel. Heavy metal contamination is of concern with respect to direct landfill, incinerator ash disposal and composting. When incineration occurs this produces emissions of CO2, NOx, CO and SO2, hydrocarbon and dioxins.
Digital publishing uses no paper, either from virgin or recycled sources. It requires no heavy processing and the only water we require is to keep our staff in tea while they are working on your digital print project. Yes we need energy to power our servers and our computers but there is no comparison between the amount of energy we use and that of the paper industry.
Contact our dedicated Digital Publishing Team:
 UK on 0845 838 6888.
 International enquiries +44 (0)870 766 8281
 Email us at info@digital-publishing.co.uk for further information.
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