Born as Twins - Papermaking and Recycling

摘要

In the year AD 105, when Cai Lun, the purchasing administrator at the Chinese Emperor's Court, invented, or better, recorded the papermaking process, recycling was common practice. Used textiles, fishing nets and the hemp material of ropes gave a better and cheaper (less labour-intensive) raw material for papermaking than the bark of mulberry trees, bamboo and China grass. When the art of papermaking, on its long march through the Arabian world, came to Europe, used textile rags were the only raw material, so that recycling was closely related to papermaking, and to guarantee the papermaker's business base, it was strictly forbidden to export textile rags to other countries. Despite heavy penalties, smuggling nourished at that time. The de-inking process was invented by Julius Claproth in 1774, and bleaching by Claude Louis Berthollet in 1785, but with the introduction of groundwood pulp in 1843 by Friedrich Keller, recycling lost its preferential status in the paper-manufacturing industry. This situation prevailed until the second half of the 20th century, when economic considerations, especially in central Europe, led to its comeback, long before ecological demands forced its reintroduction and environmental legislation was put in place. Thus recycling in relation to papermaking is not a new invention, but a twin arrangement dating from the very beginning. In the future, a certain balance must be maintained between primary and secondary fibre input to avoid any collapse in the paper strength by too extensively repeated recycling, as well as to assist the forest industry in keeping our forests clean and healthy.