Page 326 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

CENTRAL CASE STUDY

Certified Sustainable Paper

in Your Textbook

“FSC is the high bar in forest certification, because
CANADA its standards protect forests of significant conser-
vation value and consistently deliver meaningful
Lake Superior
improvements in forest management on the ground.”
— Kerry Cesareo, deputy director, WWF-US Forests
Lake Huron Program
MICHIGAN
(Upper
Peninsula) “As a company and as individuals, we must be
able to look ourselves in the mirror and know that
Escanaba we are truly doing what is right and good for the
Lake Michigan MICHIGAN environment.”
(Lower Peninsula)
— Rick Willett, president and CEO, NewPage Corporation
UNITED Atlantic
STATES
Ocean

As you turn the pages of this textbook, you are handling paper In this way, the Escanaba mill produces about 780,000
made from trees that were grown, managed, harvested, and tons of paper each year. It recycles chemicals and water used
processed using certified sustainable practices. in the process, and it combusts discarded lignin to help power
If you were to trace the paper in this book back to its ori- the mill.
gin, you would find yourself standing in a diverse mixed forest Each stage in this process has been examined by inde-
of aspen, birch, beech, maple, spruce, and pine in the Upper pendent third-party inspectors accredited by the Forest Stew-
®
®
Peninsula of Michigan. This sparsely populated region near the ardship Council (FSC ) to ensure that practices meet the
Canadian border, flanked by Wisconsin, Lake Michigan, and FSC’s strict criteria for sustainable forest management and
Lake Superior, remains heavily forested, despite supplying tim- paper production. The Forest Stewardship Council is an organ-
ber to our society for nearly 200 years. ization that officially certifies forests, companies, and products
The trees cut to make this book’s paper were selected for that meet sustainability standards. FSC-certified timber har-
harvest based on a sustainable management plan designed to vesting operations in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are required
avoid depleting the forest of its mature trees or degrading the to protect rare species and sensitive habitats, safeguard water CHAPTER 12 • FOREST S, FOREST MAN A GEMENT, AND PR O TECTED AREAS
ecological functions the forest performs. The logs were then sources, control erosion, minimize pesticide use, and main-
transported to a nearby pulp and paper mill at Escanaba, a tain the diversity of the forest and its ability to regenerate after
community of 13,000 people on the shore of Lake Michigan. harvesting. FSC certification is the best way for consumers of
The mill is Escanaba’s largest employer, providing jobs to about forest products to know that they are supporting sustainable
1050 residents. practices that protect forests.
At the Escanaba mill, the wood is chipped and then fed The Escanaba mill is the largest of eight mills run by the
into a digester, where the chips are cooked with chemicals to NewPage Corporation, based in Ohio. NewPage’s mills (in Ken-
break down the wood’s molecular bonds. To make white paper, tucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin)
lignin (the polymer that gives wood its sturdiness) is separated together produce 3.5 million tons of coated paper each year for
out and discarded, leaving only the wood’s cellulose fibers. books, magazines, newspapers, food packaging, and more.
Millworkers bleach, wash, and screen the cellulose fibers and Only some of this paper is FSC-certified, but NewPage seeks
mix them with water and dye. This mixture is poured onto a out suppliers of wood from private land who are certified at
moving mat, where heavy rollers press it into thin sheets. The least to the less-rigorous standards of the Sustainable Forestry
CHAPTER 12 • FOREST S, FOREST MAN A GEMENT, AND PR O TECTED AREAS
®
sheets of newly formed paper are then dried on heated rollers Initiative . NewPage states that it does not use wood from old-
and made ready to receive any of a variety of coatings. The growth forests, rainforests, or forests of exceptional conserva-
paper is wound into immense reels, later to be cut into sheets. tion value. 325

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