What is the waste stream of paper?

     The waste stream of paper or also known as the recycled paper can be defined as the total flow of waste come from industrial or domestic areas throughout to the end disposal. The interference of recycling might act to reduce the content of a waste stream since it passages down the track. Based on a report from the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA, about 27% of MCW or Municipal Solid Waste is contained of the paper waste. The main element in paper production is fiber and is removed out from two key resources, which are wood and also recycled paper items. In addition to this, the United States healthcare facilities produce almost 2 billion pounds of paper waste along with the waste of cardboard every single year. This has been considered as the biggest class of waste in a complete of 5 billion pounds of all types of waste come from the healthcare section every year. The ascendency of paper within the waste stream is the reality of the economy as a whole (Bajpai, 2014).

 The figures that needed to be noted here are:

The regular consumption of paper per individual in the year of 1999 was just about 354 kilograms, which similar for the consumption made by 6 persons in Asia (usi.edu, n.d.)

Almost all of the grooved fiberboard boxes acquire more than 25% of recycled fibers

The good news from this is that, a procedure of waste paper recycling has come up as a great alternative to reduce the waste stream comes from paper. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA in the United States has mentioned that recycling might able to lessen 35% of water pollution and also 74% of air pollution if compared with the manufacturing process of virgin paper.  

Q2. The impact of waste stream on paper

            It is an undeniable fact that waste stream on paper could cause many negative impacts. Some of them are as mentioned below (Pivnenko, Olsson, Götze, Eriksson, & Astrup, 2016).

Forest Destruction

            The preservation of our forests is really essential. The fact that now our forests are fading at an alarming level. In the meantime, some companies are fostering eco-friendly paper industrial procedures, still, the tissue papers from the companies are cutting the forests. Now, as we acknowledged that these forests are ecosystems for millions of species that will have to face extermination along with the evaporation of the forest environment. In addition to this, forests also able to produce oxygen while they contain CO2 levels. By the end of 2040, the plantations are anticipated to reach 52 million acres.

Landfill Volume

The statistics report mentioned that 35 of each 100 pounds of waste that drives to landfill is, indeed, paper. This data has made paper to be listed as the top place in the context of waste products, and the transport meant for the waste is definitely will cost money. For this reason, the more waste, the higher the cost to be distributed for transporting the waste. Since the landfill volume is increasing, then bigger land is required for the containment of waste. As a result, wastes frequently need to be burned, and thus, will cause air pollution. Furthermore, the paper comprises various toxins and poisons that drip into the soil from both open and closed landfills, then, inside the soil, it will able to cause ecological destruction.

Litter

Paper creates about a third of the entire litter, and it will cost a country to spend thousands of dollars in cleaning them up every year. The reason is due to the areas which have litter issues will be unattractive for the business and tourists as well. Moreover, the littered areas raise up many types of bacteria and also cause diseases. Paper consists of some toxins that leak into the soil as the paper crumbles. These types of toxins will be carried out into the waterways throughout the stormwater. Animals that eat this litter will become ill or even die.

Q3. How to recycle the paper and its impacts (good and bad)?

Paper is a type of material that could be recycled easily. Recycled paper is actually defined as paper that was produced from paper and also the paper products that have previously been utilized and recovered. The process of recycling paper is mentioned as below (greentumble.com, 2018).

Assortment

The paper merchants and also the recyclers will assort the paper materials from some collection places like paper stores, trash bins, paper tussle yards, and also some profitable outlets that produce the paper waste.

Organizing

When accepted at the facility of recycling, the paper will be further organized based on the quantity and also the paper value by measuring the materials that were utilized to produce the paper. In most cases, the papers are categorized in accordance with their exterior treatment and also configuration.

Shredding and pulping

The next thing is to shredding which is done with a purpose to break down the materials of paper into little parts. Then, the paper materials will be mixed with chemicals and water into a slurry material named pulping.

This recycling process definitely creates good impacts such as (Virtanen & Nilsson, 2013):

Reduces the cutting of fresh wooden

The available stock of recycled paper will lessen the bigger percentage of the raw products to be used in paper production.

Minimize the wastewater stream poisonousness

Recycling limits the polluted amount of wastewater to access the resources of freshwater in the globe.

Decrease the wastewater production

Recycling diminishes the number of impacts related to the production of paper to the environment.