Canadian Geographic June Issue to be Made with Waste Wheat Straw Paper
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 05.22.08
Making Paper from Waste Wheat Straw
Some talk the talk and walk the walk. The June issue of Canadian Geographic is their annual 'environmental' issue, and it will be completely printed on paper made from wheat straw. They are the first magazine in North America to do that.
They call the resulting paper the "wheat sheet." It took more than 10 years to scientists at the Alberta Research Council to develop it. It's not completely straw, though: 20% wheat straw and 40% recycled paper. But with that mix, it rivals "any glossy paper made primarily from virgin timber" and "looks just the same as the other stuff", so we suspect that for non-glossy paper, a higher ratio of wheat straw could be used, saving even more trees.
Waste Wheat Straw Paper Still Hard to Find
But as is often the case with early adopters, there's a bump in the road:
Canada is the world's largest producer of commercial pulp, but the industry has shown little interest in wheat straw, which is used primarily in China. In fact, the wheat straw pulp used to create the wheat sheet was imported from China because there is no facility in North America able to process wheat into pulp.
But if this helps increase awareness and interest in the stuff, it will have been worth it. You have to start somewhere...
How Much Waste Wheat Straw Do We Have?
Nicole Rycroft, executive director of Markets Initiative, said that just for Canada, the 15 million tonnes of cereal waste that agriculture creates annually could be used to make 7.5 million tonnes of pulp, equivalent to about 80% of all the newsprint used in Canada in a given year. That would certainly make a big difference on how much of the boreal forest gets chopped down (especially if it's for newspapers that have a shelf life of only one day).
It would take an investment of about $50-million to $200-million to upgrade an existing Canadian facility to be able to use wheat straw. But once that investment is made, it takes a lot less energy to process wheat straw, so some savings could be made on that front.
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More Waste Wheat Straw Paper
::Glossy magazine wakes up on 'wheat sheets'
::canadian Geographic June Issue
It is a neat idea, but if they really want to help the environment they can e-mail an electronic version of the magazine to their readers.
"It is a neat idea, but if they really want to help the environment they can e-mail an electronic version of the magazine to their readers."
That's indeed a good idea, but as long as there are also hard copies, we might as well find ways to make them greeners.
What do they do with the existing wheat straw? If they plow it under, won't using it in paper deprive the soil of a nutrient source, resulting in more fertilizer use?
...or is wheat straw so nutrient poor that decaying doesn't add anything to the soil?
I'm genuinely asking (not being sarcastic).
"What do they do with the existing wheat straw?"
I think some of it has some use, but a lot of it might just be burned.
But even if it isn't, I guess the question is which is worse, removing straw that would go back to the soil, or cutting down more of the boreal forest.
There's probably a balance to be found. We grow so much wheat...
I've been involved with this project - so can answer a few of the questions.
This story is really exciting because this trial paper shows the incredible potential we have in Canada to alleviate pressure off our forests. Almost 50% of our logging in the Boreal goes into pulp and paper products. With all this waste grain straw in the Prairies, there ARE other options than wood pulp for paper.
This isn’t about trading in one environmental issue for another. These straws do not come from dedicated crops, so it doesn't interfere with food or even energy crops; wheat straw is a by-product of the harvest. The Wheat Sheet is about utilizing the massive volumes of straw that are left over after it’s been tilled back into the land (where appropriate, which isn’t the case for all cereal straws) and used for animal bedding and other small uses. This is for the straw that normally gets burned or disposed of by other means as a waste.
We're interested in making this waste available for commercial scale pulp production. Canadian Geographic will not be printing on this paper again until there is a commercial supply available in North America. Markets Initiative, the environmental organization behind this trial, is actively building a market for these papers and working hard to kick-start this industry for the sake of our forests.
Check us out: www.marketsinitiative.org
Very cool and thanks for the additional information.
I'm guessing the other big hurdle is that wheat sheet is probably more expensive than pulp from forests... Is there a projection that say at X utilization the price will drop below virgin pulp? Or do we still need to make cutting down trees more expensive?
@M.Anderson:
Thank you. This has been one of my chief concerns about ethanol as an alternative energy source. Even cellulosic from agricultural 'waste' is potentially taking nutrients that should be composted back into the soil. Good compost has a decent carbon load, and that carbon comes from this 'waste' if the system is done right. We need to look beyond the age of fire and think about energy outside of the 'let's burn stuff' ideology. The sun already burns 24/7/365, and in turn drives the wind which in turn drives the waves. These are what we should focus on harvesting—as well as healthy soil.
cool idea-newspapers, books, magazines and such should be printed in alternative recycleable methods :)
let's not forget that emailing has an environmental impact as well - server farms unless solar powered takes its toll too