At the end of every month the newspapers, magazines, used notebooks, invitation cards, flyers etc from our hpuseholds stack up and go to the raddiwala. But what happens after that???
It has been estimated that the recovery rate of paper in India is only 26 percent!! This means that almost 6.5 million tons of paper reaches landfills as refuse and is lost forever...
Before reaching the recycling mills the paper goes through various middlemen.
First in the cycle is the scrap dealer, also known as the kabariwallah, who collects waste from homes. He does a basic level segregation and sells his goods to the local dealer.
In terms of paper waste, newspapers are a majority. The new trend observed is that a number of households generally get at least two papers and the weight of the newspaper is also more because a number of add-on supplement papers, advertisement flyers attached and content. The raddiwala buys the newspaper at approximately Rs 9 per kg from the households and sells it to the local dealer (at Rs 10.50)
After collecting all the waste, the scrap dealer sells his goods to the local area dealer. Here another level of basic segregation takes place. In case of newspaper waste, each paper has to be straightened, sorted and bundled into organised stacks before it can be sold further. These dealers work with different wholesalers—there are separate wholesalers for different kinds of waste.
These are the steps to recycling in the paper mill:
1. Storage and Collection
Recovered paper is unloaded into a warehouse and segregated as per grades.
2. Re-pulping and Screening
The recovered paper moves on a conveyer through a pulper which chops, heats and breaks down the paper with water and chemicals to form fibers of cellulose.
Next the pulp is forced to pass through screen with holes of different sizes, which eliminate plastic, glue and any other particles.
3. Cleaning
By spinning the pulp in large funnel shaped cylinders, heavy (like staples) and light contaminants are removed.
4. De inking
This is a “pulp laundering” operation to remove printing ink and “stickies”. Two processes are used in combination- washing and flotation.
5. Refining, Bleaching and Colour Striping
The fibers are made to swell and large bundles undergo refining to separate then into finer fibers. If the pulp is coloured then clour striping removes the dyes present.
If the recycled paper is to be made white, it is bleached with hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide or ozone.
6. Papermaking (finally...!!!)
The pulp is mixed with water and chemicals and this mixture is sprayed onto a huge flat wire screen moving through a paper machine. Water starts to drain out due to press-rollers and the fibers bond.
The sheets, now resembling paper go through heated metal roller, thereby drying them. Glossy coating, if needed, is applied at this stage.
Finally, the finished paper is wound into a giabt roll and removed from the paper machine!
