THE PERFORMANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PAPER

by Nicole Rycroft

It was flecked, grey and a sure machine jam: Using recycled paper used to seem like a great sacrifice – a very expensive sacrifice that caused headaches. But that kind of thinking is passé today, since an increased demand for quality environmental papers has released several au courant sheets onto the market. Some paper manufacturers still have kinks to work out of their green papers, but many have developed green choices that compete in quality with their traditional virgin paper lines.

Many printers have jumped on all sorts of environmental papers, only to be quickly reminded that paper performance is still key to profitability. Less expensive green papers still carry many quality issues for the commercial marketplace, but there are so many options now available that a careful search will yield positive results. 

Imagine a hierarchy of environmentally preferable papers: at the top is post-consumer recycled (PCR) fibre, followed by agricultural residues, then FSC-certified virgin fibre, with uncertified old growth all but deplorable. A viable – admittedly time-intensive – search for environmental alternatives needs to compare paper performance across this full spectrum. 

We all know that wood is good for paper. That has been well established, invested in and nearly perfected on printing presses for decades. But several of Canada’s top printers are now routinely running high-recycled-content papers on their equipment, because of a significant demand for Ancient Forest Friendly paper coming from book and magazine publishers.

Most printers assume that as environmental quality goes up, measurable performance characteristics go down. But many currently available environmental papers are good enough to show that this is just old-school prejudice. All the same, there are very few printers willing to take a stand and print on 100 percent PCR coated and uncoated sheets. It is therefore vital to look into the real fibre qualities that go into environmental papers to explode a few myths and explore a few realities.  Engineering for the future There are a couple of ways to evaluate  paper performance: first, by assessing if the fibre is up to the task at hand and, second, by comparing how it performs relative to other papers. This is an important distinction. For example, nobody would argue that a Formula One car performs better on a racing circuit than a Volkswagen Bug. But the Bug can get you to and from work for 30 years. Only a desire for style and show drives companies to design a product that performs better than it needs to. Instead, the emphasis should be on a product’s functional efficiency. 

Now that paper companies understand the feasibility of designing high-quality eco-efficient products, fibre engineers are spending more of their time developing environmentally preferable papers. Some non-wood papers are quite promising: wheat straw, for example, creates a pulp that delivers a very smooth print surface. The process of recycling paper, however, shortens fibres, which can affect the look of the paper and the strength of the sheet.

Now that a few major paper producers understand the need for higher- quality Ancient Forest Friendly papers, the uncoated book grade and cut uncoated free sheet have seen marked improvements. A couple of new coated sheets with high recycled content have also come onto the market, and they work well with only minimal machine adjustment.  The recycled coated sheet still needs more attention and care from smart paper engineers – and a wider array of manufacturers. Combining recycled and non-wood fibres for commercial or commodity papers, which would bolster some of the qualities lost in recycling, is a logical idea. But until someone builds a commodity non-wood pulping mill, output on non-wood paper will remain a specialty print job. 

Raincoast Books was one of the first publishers to use Ancient Forest Friendly book grade paper. They printed the last two Harry Potter books and many of their titles over the past five years on 100 percent PCR. (Both Cascades and New Leaf are producing a 55-pound uncoated book grade.) Raincoast’s production manager, Cindy Connor, says that the paper has improved significantly over the past five years. In particular, she says that the colour now looks more natural, evenly creamy in tone, and cleaner than it used to. 

Because the opacity has improved, it is now possible to print dual tones and four colour on the sheet. The bulk is still not as good as on a virgin sheet, since the paper uses shorter recycled fibres, but it has increased. The paper is being produced by both Canadian and US companies, and most major printers in Canada keep it as a house stock. Coated St. Joseph Communications, headquartered in Concord, Ontario, runs the German Leipa-brand 100-percent PCR coated on their web offset presses. Fine tuning for the new paper was initially a challenge. On the first run, the company found that the paper printed very dull and produced web-press breaks. But they had an eureka moment after torrential rains flooded their headquarters in August 2005. 

The Leipa paper absorbed so much water that the Kraft labels on its wrapping were destroyed. On the next run, for Explore magazine, they tightened the ink-water balance as much as possible, and used minimum drier temperature on the heat press for a better gloss. The print quality and runnability improved dramatically, and they could get the right colour balance. Explore took a risk and had some performance hiccups at the outset, but they have had success with the 100-percent PCR Leipa since then.

Hemlock has also had success printing on 10-percent and 30-percent PCR coated options. Using 100-percent PCR coated, they experienced picking and motley surfaces when working with heavy solids, but otherwise the paper runs well. Richard Kouwenhoeven from Hemlock feels that, in general, a high PCR coated #1 sheet performs similarly to a high-end #2 virgin. 

Transcontinental has also tried out the Leipa 100-percent PCR coated and runs Connection 100-percent PCR on their web presses for Yes and Know magazines. Both work well and have received a good response from Transcontinental’s customers. Graham Moore of Transcontinental says that his company is fine-tuning to run the paper as a common stock. “Our customers accepted the samples and we were pleasantly surprised with its runnability,” he said. “We believe that we’re only going to get more orders on this type of paper.”

If short fibres and porosity hamper the performance of recycled papers, agricultural residue fibres such as flax and wheat straw may someday enhance their quality. The chart shows that the properties of agricultural fibres make them an attractive additive to recycled fibres. Comparing various tree and non-wood fibres shows us that flax is long, while wheat is similar to aspen. Of course, the addition of a percentage of FSC certified wood fibre can also boost the performance mix of a recycled blend sheet.

Companies such as Ecusta, Schweitzer Mauduit, Vision Paper and Living Tree Paper have been making non-wood and recycled paper blends for years. Living Tree has produced flax/hemp/recycled CD inserts for superstars like Avril Lavigne, while Vision produces a variety of Kenaf-blended papers. Ecusta and Schwitzer produce specialty items with flax straw such as cigarette papers. 

We have entered the new millennium, and now we see some of the largest presses in the country running Ancient Forest Friendly papers on their machines. The infrastructure that would make economy of scale pricing possible is not yet in place, but if you and your clients think the environmental impact of the paper you use is just as important a performance criterion as any other. Even better, if you look at the printed product, you will see that you are not comparing a Lamborghini to a Bug, but a Hummer to a Prius.