By Sabine Lenz

“Breathtakingly beautiful.” “It marks the birth of a new era.” The June 2008 “Wheat Sheet” edition of Canadian Geographic magazine was all the rage.

“We envision commercial production of wheat straw pulp in North America within the next two to four years,” Markets Initiative (now Canopy) stated at the time.

Here was a tangible solution, a perfect example of how to satisfy the increasing appetite our paper market has for environmental solutions. But to this day, you will be hard pressed to find any agri-waste papers readily stocked in North America. What happened? Was it just a fairy tale?

The Fairy Tale Characters
No fairy tale can unfold without a hero, or in our case, several heroes who were first brought together on the Canadian Geographic magazine project by Canopy:

Start with Alberta Research Council (ARC) scientists who had been experimenting with wheat straw for paper making purposes since 1999.

Enter Canadian Geographic with its willingness to work on this project for four years.

Add NewPage’s Niagara Mill that made the actual paper (20 percent wheat straw, 40 percent recycled pulp, 40 percent virgin pulp).

And top it off with Ottawa-based Dollco Printing a leading publications printer who successfully ran both the trial and the actual print run of the Canadian Geographic “wheat sheet” issue.

Their Waste, Our Gold
In North America, as in most parts of the world, paper is predominantly made from wood-based fiber (read: trees). Only nine percent of the world’s paper is produced from alternative fibers, and most of those are made in China and India.

When wheat is grown and harvested, the stem and stalk of the wheat plant are considered waste products – what we lovingly call agri-waste. These pieces are then chemically pulped and turned into paper. Sounds simple enough.

Even better, this pulp source is perennially renewable. As long as people farm, there will be a continued supply of wheat straw. And it has the potential to add a diversified income stream for farmers. If this doesn’t sound too good to be true …

Why Wheat Straw?
So what makes wheat straw so special? After all, there are other great wood alternatives like kenaf, hemp and bamboo. But all of these require land allocated to the growth of the “fiber,” while each year large quantities of the wheat harvest byproducts go to waste.

And unlike oats and barley, two of the major cereal grains grown on the Canadian Prairies and the American Midwest, wheat straw is not used for animal feed. Some of it becomes bedding for livestock; some is plowed back into the soil.

Add to this that the ARC claims it takes less energy, water and chemicals to make wheat straw pulp. So what are we waiting for?

Ample Wheat for Everybody
Back in June 2008, Rick Boychuk, Canadian Geographic’s editor-in-chief, estimated that Canada alone could easily provide eight million tons of pulp a year, enough for 20 million magazines.

“In 2009, conservative estimates for the available wheat in the main U.S. wheat growing states and Canadian prairies show there is more than 33 million tons of wheat straw,” explains Neva Murtha, Second Harvest campaigner for Canopy. “Assuming it takes 2.5 tons of straw to make one ton of chemical pulp, that’s more than 13 million tons of paper pulp.”

The “Wheat Sheet”
But back to the sheet at hand. Even though we have ample wheat agri-waste on our shores, we do not have the facilities to turn this straw into pulp. The wheat straw pulp used for the Canadian Geographic magazine actually had to be brought in from China, where more than 20 percent of paper fiber already comes from wheat or rice. (This, obviously, is not a sustainable solution in the long run.)

To the imported wheat pulp, the NewPage’s mill in Niagara Falls added 40 percent recycled fiber and 40 percent virgin fiber to create a beautifully coated sheet.

Where Are We Now?
It sounded like a win-win solution for the North American paper industry, farming communities and the environment, but …

Canopy had originally identified five Canadian and 10 U.S. mills as prime candidates for retrofitting to wheat straw pulping.

Due to the current economic situation and the estimated investment of $50 million to $200 million to retrofit existing facilities, none of the five Canadian mills have considered doing so.

“However, several of the U.S. locations are looking at it,” says Murtha. “We have reason to believe North American-produced agricultural residue pulp and paper will be available within two to three years.”

In the Meantime
So what do you do if you’d still like to use agri-waste sheets as an environmental alternative? Several Indian mills are making wheat sheets available on a shipping-against-order basis.

“There are many combinations of agricultural residues available for pulping and paper production,” says Ravinder Safaya, president at North American Cellulose Services Ltd. and an avid advocate of paper mills utilizing these eco-friendly options. “For example, Indian paper mills have well developed technology utilizing these fibers and producing writing and printing paper, the quality of which has improved with advance pulping technology made available in recent years.”

“Currently trials of these eco-friendly papers are under way with select North American publishers, and commercial orders are being discussed. Among others, some of the paper mills such as Shreyans Industries’ SwanWhite and HiBright utilize 97 percent of wheat straw and tall grass papers; Bindal Papers’ BriteWhite is made from 90 percent bagasse and wheat straw. Abhishek Industries’ Diamond Line contains 60 percent wheat straw and balance chemical pulp to provide adequate strength to paper,” explained Safaya.

The Moral of the Story
If you don’t mind waiting for your “gold” to be shipped in, these are your only wheat sheet options … at least until our happily-ever-after ending comes along.

Getting that Happy Ending
Murtha feels that agricultural residue paper development could revolutionize the North American paper industry. To support this market, she suggests a few things that you can do:

• Connect with Canopy by adding your company to the list of more than 350 companies that have a paper procurement policy that includes a stated preference for agricultural residue paper.
• Complete the agricultural residue paper market study.
• Let your major paper suppliers know you support agricultural residue paper development.

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Seeing designers worldwide struggle to stay current with new papers and paper trends inspired Sabine Lenz to create PaperSpecs, an independent and comprehensive Web-based paper selection tool and weekly e-newsletter. Growing up in Germany, she started her design career in Frankfurt, before moving on to Australia and the United States. Lenz worked on design projects ranging from corporate identities to major road shows and product launches. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, her list of clients included Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Deutsche Bank, IBM and KPMG. Lenz is a noted speaker and author on paper issues and educational topics related to the paper industry.

Please visit PaperSpecs at www.paperspecs.com to sign up for the free weekly e-newsletter and to receive Ms. Lenz’s e-book “19 Ways to Cut Your Paper Costs.” Check the Web site for the next regularly scheduled live online tour of the paper database and selection tool.

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