Isbn: 3-527-30999-3

©2006 WILEY-VCHVerlag GmbH&Co .

Handbook of Pulp

Edited by Herbert Sixta

1

Introduction

During the era before the introduction of industrialized paper production 200

years ago, the most common fiber furnish was secondary fibers recovered from

used textiles. These were rags based on hemp, linen, and cotton. Only after the

invention of mechanical woodpulp in 1843 and chemical woodpulp during the

second half of the nineteenth century was paper production no longer as reliant

on recycled material as in the previous 2000 years.

Before industrialized paper production and the invention of the paper machine

in 1799, stationery or writing paper made from rags was recycled to produce lowgrade

board. As early as 1774, Claproth in Gцttingen, Germany, improved the processing

of used, hand-made writing papers. His process removed optically disturbing

inks or printing ink. Today, we call this method “deinking”.

With growing industrialization and gross national product, the global paper production

increased significantly from almost 44 million tons in 1950 to 339 million

tons in 2003. The data in Tab. 1.1 indicate that between 1960 and 2000, for a doubling

of the paper production worldwide, in the CEPI countries (all EU countries

plus Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Slovak Republic, and Switzerland) or in

Germany, an approximate period of 20 years was necessary, whereas between

1950 and 1960 only a 10-year period was required for the first doubling of paper

production. In all of these time periods no doubling appeared in the USA where,

Tab. 1.1 Development of paper production between 1950 and 2003, in million tons [1–6].

Country Year

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2003

Germany 1.6 3.4 6.6 8.8 12.8 18.2 19.3

CEPI 10.5 20.5 36.7 40.7 63.1 90.8 95.2

USA 22.1 31.3 47.6 56.8 72.2 85.8 80.2

World 43.8 74.4 129.3 171.7 240.8 324.0 338.8

1149

Handbook of Pulp. Edited by Herbert Sixta

Copyright © 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Isbn: 3-527-30999-3

in 1950, about 50% of the global paper production was produced. This proportion

decreased until 2002 to 25% and becomes also expressed in the lowest average

annual growth rate between 1950 and 2002 in this comparison of: 2.5% for USA;

4.0% worldwide; 4.2% for the CEPI countries; and 4.8% for Germany.

Compared with the situation today, the recycling of used paper products manufactured

from woodpulp fibers was of little importance during the first half of the

twentieth century. During the 1950s and 1960s, increasing use was made of

recycled fiber furnish, especially for the production of packaging paper and board.

International statistics related to the use of recovered paper published in the official

yearbooks of the German association of the paper industry (VDP) stated first

in 1979 international data for the utilization of recovered paper. In 1963, the

annual review of PPI (Pulp &P aper International) published earlier international

data on recovered paper for the year 1961 [7]. Figure 1.1 illustrates the global increase

of recovered paper utilization and paper production between 1961 and 2002.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

1961 1970 1980 1990 2002

Recovered paper utilization

Paper production

Recovered paper utilization and paper production, 106 tons

37.1 %

Recovered paper utilization rate

19.3 % 23.6 % 29.6 % 47.7 %

Fig. 1.1 Global development of recovered paper utilization

and paper production between 1961 and 2002 [1–4,7].