Avoid chlorine bleached paper
Posted: 13.02.09 | Created by: Do Something
Chlorine bleaching can be used to give paper its stark white colour. It can also have a negative effect on the environment. Do your business documents use paper that’s been chlorine bleached? If so, switch to paper that’s been oxygen bleached or not bleached at all.
If you must use bleached paper
- Only ever buy oxygen bleached paper
- Never buy chlorine bleached paper
The US Natural Resources Defense Council provides the following detailed explanations of paper bleaching processes:
(1)
- Totally chlorine-free (TCF): Virgin paper produced without chlorine or chlorine derivatives (the bleaching process uses oxygen-based compounds)
- Processed chlorine-free (PCF): Contains recycled content produced without elemental chlorine or chlorine derivatives, although one or more fiber components may have originally been bleached with chlorine or chlorine derivatives. Any virgin pulp is TCF
- Elemental chlorine-free (Traditional ECF): Replaces elemental chlorine with chlorine dioxide in the bleaching process
- ECF with extended or oxygen delignification (Enhanced ECF): Removes more of the lignin from the wood before bleaching, thus reducing energy and chemical use during bleaching (the final stage uses chlorine dioxide)
- Enhanced ECF with ozone or hydrogen peroxide: In addition to removing more of the lignin from the wood before bleaching, substitutes ozone or hydrogen peroxide for chlorine or chlorine dioxides as a brightening agent in the initial stages of the bleaching process (the final or near-final stage uses chlorine dioxide).
NRDC's order of preference for bleaching processes, on the basis of environmental criteria, is as follows:
(1)
- PCF (preferable to TCF because product includes recycled content; TCF is used only to refer to 100 percent virgin paper)
- TCF
- Enhanced ECF with ozone or hydrogen peroxide
- Enhanced ECF (ECF with extended or oxygen delignification)
- Traditional ECF.
References:
(1) Natural Resources Defense Council
Read some great tips on how to reduce your paper usage.
Return to facts.
Return to home page