Plantations, poverty and power - Critical Information Collective

150
Conclusion and recommendations
It is usual in a report such as this to provide recommendations. After all, we want the pulp and paper
industry to improve. However, as this report has hopefully shown, voluntary certification schemes or
voluntary guidelines have completely failed to produce the structural changes needed in the industry.
They have even failed to improve the industry by preventing the most disastrous projects from going
ahead.
Networks of NGOs in North America, Europe and Indonesia have produced “Visions” of how they would
like to see the pulp and paper industry develop. These “Visions” contain much that is good, such as a
more than 50 per cent reduction of paper production in the case of the European Environmental Paper
Vision. But they don’t go far enough in proposing a radical restructuring of the industry in such a way
that would make redundant the massive industrial tree plantations that the industry is increasingly relying
on.
Here is another vision of the pulp and paper industry.
“[I]magine a future scenario: All your separated household waste is collected from outside your house
and transported to the local combined and very small power/pulp/paper mill. What used to go to landfill
goes straight to the fluidized bed boiler along with everything that can be burnt (not paper!) for the supply
of local energy. Your paper for recycling then goes into the pulp mill, along with any local farmers’ raw
material waste that can be used for pulp. Then tissue and toilet rolls, cut size A4 and any other paper
products that can be made in a miniature, fully automated mill, are produced and then delivered to the
local supermarkets ready for the repeat of the next short, lifecycle.” 699
Before you dismiss this as hopelessly radical or out of touch with the real world, I should point out that
this “Vision” comes from Pulp and Paper International, a magazine produced for the industry and which
usually promotes business as usual for the industry. While we could (and should) argue about whether
we really want all our waste to be incinerated (given the pollution involved) and need to discuss with
local communities where these minimills are to be built, the proposal to restructure the industry using
small scale regional mills would avoid many of the problems created by today’s pulp and paper industry.
It would also help address the problem of overproduction by producing paper that is needed locally. It
would also create jobs.
A UK-based company, BioRegional, has developed such “minimills”. The mills were originally designed
to be used in China, where thousands of small scale mills which used agricultural residues as raw material
have been closed down – partly because they are polluting, but also partly to allow the restructuring of the
industry with massive pulp and paper mills, to a large extent reliant on imported pulp. BioRegional’s
minimills would allow China’s small-scale mills to be replaced with far less polluting versions, rather
than closed down. 700 But the minimills could be used anywhere.
In her 1997 book, “The U.S. Paper Industry and Sustainable Production: An Argument for
Restructuring”, Maureen Smith looks at the possibilities of restructuring the North American pulp and
699 Mark Rushton (2008) “Global spotlight, local microscope”, Pulp and Paper International, August 2008, page 3.
700 A description of the BioRegional MiniMills project is available here:
http://www.bioregional.com/programme_projects/pap_fibres_prog/minimill/minimill_furtherinf.htm