Papercon, Nano Renewable Materials and a Tour of Paper Schools

I took the plunge and bought an iPad. I am on a plane right now writing this post returning from a visit to U. Maine Orono and the PSSP program there. The students are always interesting to interact with and I enjoyed visiting the professors there. The snow storm was a challenge and required us to be nimble on our feet to get home. We drove to Portland in the storm to get to this point.

I actually feel like I am on a paper school tour. A couple weeks ago I attended an Executive Seminar at IPST at Ga Tech. That institute has truly become integrated with Ga Tech under the new director's leadership. Good job Norm.

Next visit is to Western Michigan University to attend my first PTF board meeting and I am looking forward to interacting with the board members and students there.

I also plan to visit Auburn and my first professor in my chemical engineering education at SUNY Buffalo, Harry Cullinan. It good see that all of these schools are adjusting to our new reality of a smaller and different paper industry. I suspect I will see many of these professors at the TAPPI Nanotechnology Conference in June in Washington, DC. The application of the learning from the nano research being done around the world may be a major game changer. Just like this iPad. My personal experience with this device is telling me that traditional uses for fiber based materials is about to change and maybe for the better to create a more renewal and greener world.

I hope you are registered to attend Papercon in May. I am rather proud of the program my committee put together for the conference. It will feature a unit rack design keeping all of the coating geeks together for the entire conference. I am so looking forward to it.

See you then in Cincinnati!

Sustainability Features of Forest Products Based Material

Image via Wikipedia

I read a great article by Phil Riebel in Pulp and Paper International Magazine this month. The title of the article is "10 Ways to 'Green' Your Paper". He found an interesting quote he attributes to the World Wildlife Fund, but I will paraphrase here. They consider it a valuable product made of mostly renewable resources that increases levels of literacy and democracy worldwide.

Phil points out that forest based materials:

• are the product of sunlight, soil, nutrients and water
• paper is recyclable - 40% of paper worldwide is made from recycled fiber
• a major energy source in making paper is biomass
• paper production only contributes 1% of global CO2
• sustainably managed forests mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon

If you are involved in the forest products industry be proud of yourself.

Related articles

• Can I recycle recycled paper? (greenanswers.com)
• How is Paper Recycled? (1800recycling.com)
• Mondi ranked first in new WWF paper company environmental index (whattheythink.com)