Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Manila, Philippines, March 7-9, 2023 Sustainable Operations in Paper and Pulp Industry : Analysis of Challenges
Biswaksen Mishra 1 and Rajesh Kumar Singh 2 Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India 1 fpm22biswaksen_m@mdi.ac.in, 2 rajesh.singh@mdi.ac.in Abstract
A paper making process adopts primarily a generic flow of steps across industries. This industry is one of the largest in the world and is touted to be growing further with incremental demand for paper and its affiliated products for its eco-friendliness. However, paper and pulp industry is a heavily resource dependent industry be it forest resource, water resource, energy or chemicals. In fact, it is said to be one of the top five leading consumers of energy. Given such, this industry is a major contributor to depleting natural resources and increasing greenhouse gas emission, adding intensively to the global warming. Against such a backdrop, it offers relevant cause to study the scholarly discussion and debate on sustainable issues in paper and pulp industry playing around the academic universe and also to poke into and discuss some of the issues of sustainability in the industry emerging out of the articles. Accordingly, through this article, the present state of affairs in the academic fraternity on the above topic has been laid out through a bibliometric analysis, while some of the common challenges of environmental sustainability associated with the paper making process have been identified from the literature and discussed thereof. Keywords Paper, Pulp, Sustainable, Challenge, Resources 1. Introduction The history of ‘Paper’ is attributed to 3700 BC ago to its Greek origin from the word ‘Papyrus’, derived from its formation out the stalks of a papyrus plant used as a surface or base for writing (Chauhan and Meena 2021). The process of wood-based paper making starts from debarking and scrubbing of wood (Corcelli et al. 2018). The debarked and scrubbed wood is then chipped into smaller chunks of defined range, a process called chipping. The chipped woods are then sent to digesters where it is mixed with chemicals and given steam-bath to dissolve lignin and decouple the cellulose (Corcelli et al. 2018). The resultant product is the cooked pulp and the byproduct is a waste called black liquor. The cooked pulp is further washed, screened and refined to remove any residual fiber, chemical and impurities. Thereafter the material goes through a bleaching process to remove residual lignin. The bleached pulp is then sent to final paper production stage, where it goes through multiple processes and ultimately emerges out as paper sheet. In the last stage, coating and finishing operations are carried out to produce the material in its consumable form (Corcelli et al. 2018). Being one of the largest industries in the world, the pulp and paper industry is increasingly contributing to the growth of world economy with continents such as North America (38%), Europe (27%) and Asia (18%) being the major players (Baffani 2018; Chauhan and Meena 2021). Global production of paper has exceeded more than 400 MMT with China, USA and Japan consuming more than 50% of the production (Haggith 2018). According to Haggith (2018), the global average of per capita consumption of paper is 55 Kg annually, with maximum consumption in the North American region, the per capita figure being 215 Kg annually. According to IEA (2009), the demand or world paper and paperboard is expected to increase with annual production expected to touch a figure between 700 – 900 MT by 2050. China, India and other developing countries of Asia are predicted to be the major contributing players to this growth (Kong et al.2016; Chauhan and Meena 2021). As of 2020, there are nearly 5000 pulp and paper mills around the world (Vaez and Zilouei 2020). Primary demand for Paper and pulp industry is as writing and reading materials, but also has demand for other applications such as packaging, decoration, graphics, signage, cleaning etc. In fact, the demand for packaging accounts for more than 55% of global paper consumption (Chauhan and Meena 2021). Post Pandemic, due to growing preference and compatibility with digital technology, the pattern of demand is shifting towards paper as a packaging product. Even with the introduction of environmental regulations over ban on non-bio degradable items such as polyethene’s, is also expected to account for increasing demand for their paper substitutes.
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