Treeless Paper

Paper is made mostly from fibrous cellulose that comes from trees. To print one edition of the Sunday New York Times, it takes 63 thousand trees.   When you consider how many newspapers are printed around the world, how much toilet paper is consumed, and add to that all the product packaging, shipping materials, and paper we write on and and use in our computers, it's no wonder deforestation is a very serious problem. 

Forests are essential to the health of the planet.  They absorb carbon dioxide, the principle greenhouse gas created by human addiction to fossil hydrocarbon energy sources like coal and oil.  Trees  expire oxygen in the photosynthetic process.  They provide food, shelter, and a lot more to the insects, birds, and animals that are adapted to live in them. The more trees we have, the better off we all  are. 

Fortunately, a lot of factors are at work to reduce demand for paper from trees. Technology has evolved to a way that is replacing newspapers, magazines, and books printed on paper with electronic versions available on smartphones and tablet computers. Paperless communication is an idea that has arrived and is here to stay.

Packaging that once depended to a high degree on cardboard and paper is evolving rapidly. Plastics have taken over a lot of the burden from paper, and now more and more of the plastic packaging  we use is made of biodegradable, plant derived materials that are relatively benign to the environment.

There is always going to be a requirement for paper, but cutting down old growth forests and reducing them to pulp to make toilet paper makes no sense at all.   The cellulose plant fiber used in paper can be readily provided by seasonal crops like switch grass, begasse from sugar cane, kenaf, and industrial hemp.  Instead of taking years to grow, these plants grow over a matter of months into a form that is readily harvestible and easily processed into paper. 

It used to be, we depended on forests for building materials and for making furniture. These days, we have environmentally friendly substitutes that serve those same purposes. 

Biofuels have become an important part of the equation for replacing oil and coal.  Cellulosic biofuels can be made from corn stalks and other waste materials that are part of growing food crops.  Stripping trees from forestland to make bio-fuels is not cost-effective and it cannot be justified in any way when the raw materials can be acquired from fast growing cultivated crops.

We have reached a point in evolution when we can no longer take from our environment without consequence. We.must embrace our proper human role of stewardship. We must be the nurturers of our biosphere.  The transition to treeless paper is a big step in the right direction.