Paper manufacturers have led the fight for the expansion of commercial forests for over a century.

There are still remnants of the global propaganda against the use of paper. Claims that paper production causes large-scale deforestation seem to be quite persistent, despite statistical data having long proven the opposite. It is likely that the current global paper shortage will further fuel misconceptions about the paper industry.
The development of human technological culture over the past centuries has largely been based on access to raw materials and energy, and this remains true today. Forests have been extremely important in this regard, both for providing wood for house construction and heating, as well as material for shipbuilding, various tools and equipment, and papermaking.

Oversupply of paper led to factory closures

However, the current paper shortage on the world market this autumn is not due to deforestation but to the global pandemic and various other factors. Print media has been scaling back in recent years, and the increased use of plastic in packaging had also reduced the demand for paper for a long time. This resulted in an overproduction of paper in the world. To respond to this situation and to maintain paper prices, paper manufacturers like Stora Enso in Finland began closing paper mills. The company produced about 2.6 million tonnes of paper per year. There was a 15% decrease in sales last year. In April of this year, Stora Enso announced the permanent closure of two paper mills. These are the Veitsiluoto mill in Finland, which is Stora Enso's largest single paper mill, and the Kvarnsveden Mill in Sweden, which was scheduled to close permanently this autumn. The Kvarnsveden Mill has, among other things, produced newsprint and magazine paper, with a production capacity of about 565,000 tonnes per year. It also produced paper pulp, about 900,000 tonnes per year. The closure in Kvarnsveden will result in the loss of about 1,100 jobs. This causes a 35% reduction in the company's paper production, amounting to nearly 900,000 tonnes, according to a report from Printweek.

Need to close 15 paper mills cited

Annica Bresky, CEO of Stora Enso, said in an interview with Printweek in April that the overproduction of paper in Europe amounted to about 3.5 million tonnes per year. By closing the mills, the company was simply responding to reality. She said at the time that 15 medium-sized paper mills or machine complexes needed to be closed to achieve market balance.

Sudden contraction caused paper shortage

However, a sudden contraction in production, combined with speculation in the paper market, seems to have created chaos in the market, which manifested, among other things, in a paper shortage as autumn approached. Due to problems arising from Covid-19, there was also a contraction at sawmills last year, which caused a shortage of timber and raw materials for the operating paper mills. This added to the negative effects of the paper mill closures. However, paper mills have increasingly turned to using fibres from plants other than trees in recent years, further reducing the use of forests. Difficulties also arose with transportation, which have not yet been fully resolved. This then caused a shortage of paper on the market this autumn and has led to rapidly rising paper prices.

European forests were heavily exploited for a long time

Until the 20th century, oak was highly sought after for shipbuilding, and oak forests were often rapidly depleted, as the wood is slow-growing. Along with increased demand for all kinds of timber, including for papermaking, and growing urbanisation in Europe, the primeval forests there were rapidly diminished. More than 100 years ago, timber was used for almost everything. It was used as fuel for cooking and heating homes, and for metal production if coal was not available. Voices of doubt then began to be raised about the wisdom of depleting Europe's forests as rapidly as was happening. Around the turn of the 20th century, this criticism was fully justified and prompted people to think. This subsequently led to a new way of thinking about reforestation, which has literally transformed the landscape. Paper manufacturers have played a major role in this, including companies like Domtar, Verso, Sappi, and International Paper, among others, all of which have pursued active sustainability policies and have encouraged good stewardship of nature.

Forests have multiplied over a century

As an example of this development, only about 2-3% of forests remained in Britain and the Netherlands at the turn of the 20th century. This changed completely, and the figure had reached 10-12% by 2010. In many other European countries, the effects were much greater. Agriculture has also receded in many places, and urbanisation has increased, allowing forests to grow back naturally on former farmland, as is prominent in Romania and Poland.

The campaign against paper use continued despite the turnaround in forestry

Despite the revolution in forest management, it seems that self-appointed environmental apostles and activists were not prepared to acknowledge the turnaround that occurred in forestry in Europe and North America. Such groups continued their relentless propaganda that paper consumption was killing the forests. This narrative became very prominent after the mid-20th century. To support this, horrific images of deforestation in Asia and the Amazon region were published, which had absolutely nothing to do with paper production in Europe and the United States. Such propaganda still occasionally surfaces on social media, even though it has been disproven with statistical facts.

From paper to plastic packaging

However, constant dripping wears away the stone, and the campaign against paper use had the conscious and unconscious effect of shifting packaging use from all kinds of paper packaging to plastic packaging, much to the delight of oil producers. No trees needed to be cut down for plastic packaging production. It was also a bonus that plastic bags were not nearly as energy-intensive to produce and were much cheaper than paper bags, taking up less storage space. Learned reports were published on the excellence of plastic in packaging, and everything was, of course, embellished with the opinions of scientists. Now everyone knows where these extremes have led humanity, which is literally drowning in plastic. People are now witnessing entire plastic islands floating in the world's oceans and major rivers, including in Asia, overflowing with plastic waste.

From deforestation to massive forest growth

Looking back at history, it is a statistical fact that by the turn of the 20th century, a large part of Europe's forest land had been destroyed. When people foresaw a serious shortage of wood as a raw material, they began to consider forestry. Such ideas gained significant momentum after the Second World War in 1945. Many countries then initiated massive afforestation programmes that are still ongoing today. Although this turnaround has been positive, for instance with regard to the climate, the cultivation of commercial forests has the drawback of reducing the biodiversity of the forests. Homogeneity in the choice of species can thus never replace the natural primary forests that existed before.

Multiplication of forests in Europe

It has now come to the point where forest cover in Europe has multiplied over the last hundred years or so. A similar story can be told about the United States. This can be attributed, among other things, to the paper industry, which quickly set itself ambitious goals for forest regeneration on an international scale. Campaigns such as “Go Paper. Grow Trees” and “Print Grow Trees” were launched, run by the Printing & Graphics Association MidAtlantic, both in Europe and the United States. These campaigns involved planting several new trees, up to nine, for every tree cut down for papermaking. By-products from timber processing provide important wood fibres for paper production. Fresh wood fibres do not just come from large tree trunks, as they are more often than not by-products of timber production. These include branches, wood chips, and sawdust, as well as thinning wood from forestry. In Canada, about 87% of the fibres used to make paper come from sawmill by-products (59%) and recycled paper (28%). In the United States, 9% of the material used in pulp production comes from thinning, and about 32% is waste timber from sawmills. The efficient use of recycled paper and by-products from sawmills is a key element in the circular economy of papermaking – which allows for improved fibre utilisation and raw material use.

Paper recycling in Europe and North America is approaching a realistic maximum

Globally, recycled paper is the most important raw fiber material in paper production, accounting for over 56% of the fibers used to make paper pulp. In Europe, recycled paper makes up about 50% of the raw material used in the paper industry. In Europe, paper fibers are reused 3.6 times on average, while the global average is 2.4 times. Paper cannot be recycled indefinitely because the fibers become too short and break down during the papermaking process. Due to these limitations, the use of fresh wood fibers from sustainable forests is necessary to maintain the global fiber and paper production cycle.

Europe is the world leader in paper recycling

In addition to extensive forestry, Europe is today the world leader in paper recycling with a recycling rate of 72.3%. It is followed by North America with 68.1%, according to figures from the American Forest & Paper Association, 2019, the European Paper Recycling Council, 2018, and FPAC, 2015. It is believed that a recycling rate of 78% is likely the realistic maximum that can be aimed for. This is based on the fact that many paper products cannot be recovered for recycling due to long-term storage, such as paper used in books and documents. Furthermore, a portion of the paper is always destroyed or contaminated during use, e.g., in paper towels, diapers, and other products.