Question

Article on recycle paper

Answer 1

Paper recycling may be defined as a range of activities associated with the recovery and processing of scrap paper so that it can be used in the production of new paper products.   

The History of Paper Recycling

The first large-scale paper recycling is believed to take place during the World War I in the U.S. In the Second World War, paper recycling once again received a significant boost caused by the need for materials.

With the passage of time, the paper recycling rate slowly increased and according to sources, around 75 percent of paper and paperboard mills in the United States use recovered paper in the production of new paper. The same report states that 40 percent of the mills rely only on recycled paper.

Recyclable and Non-recyclable Paper

Nearly all kinds of papers are recyclable. Paper items which are not typically acceptable in collection bins include brown and craft envelopes, carbon paper, paper towels, tissues, candy wrappers, coffee cups, and pizza boxes.  Some of the most commonly recycled paper items include cardboard, newsprint and magazines, manuals and booklets, and assorted office papers.

The Paper Recycling Process

The paper recycling process involves a number of steps, including collection, transportation, sorting, processing into usable raw materials and finally using that raw material to produce new paper products:

Collection: Waste papers are collected from collection bins and deposited in a big recycling container along with the paper collected from other collection bins. So, all kinds of paper go into a single large container.

Transportation: All the recovered or collected paper waste then get transported to the paper recycling plant on a collection van or truck.

Sorting: After getting transported into recycling plants, papers are sorted into different paper categories such as cardboard, newspapers, newsprint, magazine paper, computer paper etc. as different types of papers are treated differently in the next stages of the process to produce different types of recycled paper products.

Processing the Paper into Usable Raw Material: This is the main stage in a paper recycling process. There are multiple functions in the processing phase which include the following:   

Making Pulp or Slurry: Pulping involves water and chemicals. In order to pulp the paper, machines first chop it before water and chemicals are added. Then the mixture is heated to break the paper down more quickly into paper fibers. Finally, the mixtures turn into a mushy mix, known as a slurry or pulp.

Pulp Screening and Cleaning: To remove contamination from the pulp, the pulp is forced through screens with holes of different sizes and shapes to remove contaminants such as globs of glue and bits of plastic. If the pulp still contains any heavy contaminants such as staples, the pulp may also be spun around in huge cone-shaped cylinders. The cylinders throw the heavy contaminants out of the cone using centripetal force while light contaminants go to the center of the cone and are removed.

De-inking: After screening and cleaning come de-inking, which involves removing ink from the paper fibers of the pulp while sticky materials known as “stickies” such as adhesives and glue residue are also separated. De-inking is achieved through a combination of mechanical actions (shredding and the addition of chemicals). Light and small ink particles are removed using water while heavier and larger particles are removed using air bubbles in a process called flotation.

Refining, Color Stripping, and Bleaching: In the refining stage, the pulp is beaten to make the paper fibers swell. Beating the pulp also separates individual fibers to facilitate new paper production from the separated fibers. In case coloring is required, color stripping chemicals are added to the fibers to get rid of the dyes from the paper.

In this process, brown papers are obtained. When the goal is to produce white recycled paper, the pulp is bleached with oxygen, chlorine dioxide, or hydrogen peroxide to make them brighter or whiter.

New Papermaking: In the final stage of the paper recycling process, the cleaned paper pulp is then ready to be used in the production of new paper. Normally, the pulp is blended with virgin wood fibers to provide the new paper with added smoothness and strength. The recycled paper fibers can be used alone as well, however.

At this stage, the paper pulp is mixed with chemicals and hot water. The percentage of hot water in the mixture is far greater than that of paper fibers and chemicals. After that, the mixture is fed into the headbox of a papermaking machine and is sprayed in a continuous jet onto a large wire-mesh-like screen moving very fast through the machine. As the water from the mixture starts to drain out, the recycled paper fibers start to bond together to form a watery sheet. Then, the sheet moves quickly through a series of felt-cover press-rollers that squeeze out more water from the paper pulp and it comes out as freshly manufactured paper.

Answer 2

Answer:

Recycling of Paper

Explanation:

The recycling of paper is the procedure by which waste paper is transformed into new paper items. It has some significant advantages: It spares waste paper from possessing landfills and delivering methane as it separates. Around 66% of all paper items in the US are currently recuperated and recycled, although it doesn't all turn out to be new paper. After continued handling the filaments become unreasonably short for the generation of the new paper - this is the reason virgin fiber (from economically cultivated trees) will be added to the mash formula.