UBC Undergraduate Research

An investigation into 30% recycled wood fiber paper and sugar cane paper Byun, Yoon Ji; Chan, Amelia

Abstract

Paper is one of unavoidable resources being used in university. In the University of British Columbia, roughly about 82.7 millions of paper are being used yearly. To make paper usage more efficient while campus community keeps its sustainability, Paula Goldspink, who is from the UBC’s Supply Management, aims to find an alternative for wood fibre paper UBC currently uses. Mike Nilan, from the TreeZero Company, made a suggestion to Paula of having UBC replace the 30% recycled wood fibre paper they currently purchase from Grand & Toy (G&T) with paper made of sugar cane. The product of the TreeZero Company, the TreeFrog paper is manufactured and produced in Columbia without using any traces of wood chips. By using the triple bottom line analysis (TBL), this report provides a thorough investigation into the social, economic and environmental impacts of using sugar cane paper on a local and national scale.The raw materials used to make both the wood fibre paper and the sugar cane paper was being investigated. The analysis into the environmental impacts covers the ecological footprint of each type of paper with the amount of pollutants produced and released annually. Economical impacts include the relative cost of sugar cane paper to wood fibre paper which was calculated based on raw materials, labour, pulp and bleach used for making the papers including an investigation into the cost of importing sugar cane was also being considered alongside with revenue and loss of the industry. Social benefits, such as more available jobs, the amount of salary for farmers, and profit of local sugar cane industry were also being discovered throughout the analysis. In general, the proposal of switching from using wood fibre paper to sugar cane paper was found to have more advantages than disadvantages. The manufacturing process was discovered to be the same for both types of paper and the price of sugar cane is much cheaper than wood chips in near future. Sugar cane paper uses no trees at all and produces fewer pollutants while deforestation is needed for wood fibre paper. As a final point, sugar cane paper will aid in the improvement of the sugar cane industry and the income of the farmers in other countries. Sustainability awareness will be widely promoted and UBC’s image as a leader in sustainability will be well-known in Canada and to the world. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada