Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Manila, Philippines, March 7-9, 2023
4.3 Proposed Improvements The challenges emerging out of the literature clearly warrant transformation, not just in terms of the business processes and operations, but also change in the worldview held by the industrial community as a whole encompassing the entire supply chain of pulp and paper industry. Given the processual challenges discussed above, the following improvements may be considered as the mitigating forces for such challenges: 4.3.1 Re-forestation or Afforestation Considering the act of uprooting of trees a routine affair for a wood based pulp and paper industry, this operation could be coupled with sampling plantation measures. For tree which is uprooted, all firms may consider planting atleast 2-3 samplings. The saplings could be of the same variety of trees or could be a mix of the desired variety with some most eco-friendly ones. It might take some years to actually give off the benefits of sustainability, but once the system is in order after the first few years of inception, it will be a perennial design of mitigating the issue due to deforestation. 4.3.2 Renewable sources of energy consumption Pulp and paper industry will continue to remain an energy intensive industry, unless the industry is bombarded with some new disruptive technologies. So, the best way to address the hurdle of fossil fuel consumption as well as emission of greenhouse gases is to make use of renewable energy sources. With the tariff of renewable energy seeing a downward progress, economic feasibility of introducing such sources could be explored in depth. Also, the pulp and paper making process itself offers multiple avenues of recycling its waste for sustainable consumption, prime among which is energy. The wood dust or scrap generated during wood chipping and black liquor during digesting are very useful renewable fuel sources. 4.3.3 Water recycling and rain-water harvesting As with energy sources, the consumption of water for a pulp and paper making process awaits some revolutionary technology to reduce water intake per unit of pulp and paper production. Till such time, recycling of water through efficient and effective treatment of waste water is a most feasible solution to address the threat of incessant water consumption in this industry. Also, as an industrywide practice, efforts may be pulled towards implementing rain- water harvesting projects from the water sourcing regions and the surrounding vicinity. 4.3.4 Effluent treatment The toxicity of chemicals released by way of effluents can be completely isolated from environmental diffusion through effective effluent treatment plans. In fact, through effective effluent treatment many pulp and paper making firms are able to recycle the chemical back into the production process, thereby restricting the toxic effects of the chemicals to spread into the atmosphere, while also making the firm more resourceful in terms of use of chemicals for paper making process. Apart from the measures related to the pulp and paper making industry, the following improvements are proposed for the academic community for making greater contribution to making this industry a sustainable one: 4.3.5 Research on state-of-the-art technologies The technology for pulp and paper making has still broadly remained the same over its long history. Research studies focusing on how state of the art technologies can be utilized in the pulp and paper industry need to be encouraged to bring about a discernible transformation for making the process of pulp and paper making more sustainable and resourceful. Studies on how digital technologies can improve the processes through some experimental data would be more appreciated and considered reliable for the practitioners in the industry. Simulation studies could also be presented through research publications for the industry audience for their consideration. 4.3.6 Wider discourse on prominent journals Barring one or two journals, the academic dissemination of sustainability issues in pulp and paper industry has largely fallen behind, given the global discussion on the topic taking the hot seat. So, encouraging active research and publication on the area of sustainable pulp and paper industry is a must, if we wish to strive to achieve sustainable living and consumption in a targeted time frame.
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