Making Paper from Straw
Paper products can be made from straw left over after the annual grain harvest (once soil and animal needs are met) instead of from trees. Each year, there is enough leftover straw in North America to meet many of our paper needs without logging our ancient forests.
The Second Harvest Pulp and Paper Project is about promoting and facilitating pulp and paper production without posing any harm to fragile forest ecosystems. It is a key strategy in Canopy’s campaign to reduce the stress of paper production on our ancient and endangered forests.
Key facts:
- 34 to 40% of the global forests logged by industry go into making pulp and paper and that 90% of the forests logged in Canada are old growth forests that have never been cut before. [1][2]
- In many countries, governments and industry continue to cut down forests that have existed for tens of thousands of years (in temperate zones) and for millions of years (in the tropics) with trees in these forests that are hundreds of years old.
- Ancient and endangered forests ecosystems are being dangerously disrupted to make photocopies, toilet paper, junk mail, bank statements and disposable packaging products.
Canopy would rather see single-use paper products made from readily available agricultural residuals (particularly in combination with regenerative farming techniques) instead of from endangered forest ecosystems that take hundreds or even thousands of years to regenerate.
Canopy’s Second Harvest Project will help support economic diversification for farmers, green jobs for communities, and an elegant option for diversifying North America’s paper fibre basket to help protect forests.
Read more about straw pulp and paper
Sources:
- http://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/wwf-s-living-forest-report-chapter-4-forests-and-wood-products page 8.
- Canada’s Forests at a Cross Roads, page 11, 2000, Global Forest Watch Canada
