Recycled paper from wastes: Calculation of ecological footprint of an energy-intensive industrial unit in Orissa, India

Abstract

Various reports and scientific literature relating to sustainable development suggest that producers and consumers are adopting alternative performance evaluation indicators for monitoring business activities in addition to traditional economic performance indicators. In this chapter one such new index, the ecological footprint (EF) has been used for assessing the sustainability of an industrial unit manufacturing paper from wastepaper in India. EF has been chosen as it is a transparent approach that provides comprehensive footprint information. This was deemed to be a more appropriate approach as it can be used by the company as a communication tool thereby helping to identify the environmental benefits of implementing improvement scenarios. Recycling paper is a very efficient way to reduce environmental impacts. Putting wastepaper to its best possible use can lower emissions and thereby lower the level of consumption of natural resources. Using recycled paper has been considered to be an attribute for making the environment more sustainable both in the paper and other industries. Recycling paper is an integral part of any solid waste management plan. In this work EF of paper produced by a paper production unit in Balasore, Orissa, India, manufacturing ‘newsprint’ and ‘printing & writing paper’ has been calculated for the year 2011–2012. The manufacturing unit of the case study manufactures 1,25,414 MT tonnes of paper per annum, primarily from wastepaper. Results reveal that the total ecological footprint of the case study unit in 2011–2012 ranged between 60,852–62,751 ha and the ecological footprint per tonne of production varies between 0.48–0.50 ha for the year 2011–2012. This low EF per ton of production is because the unit is using recycled paper for production of its final output. The hotspots or factors affecting the size of the unit’s footprint are namely: energy (generation of electricity in captive plant through coal fired steam turbine), materials (i.e., wastepaper, pulp, and chemicals required for the manufacturing of papers produced), and wastes such as fly ash, paper, plastic, sludge, and the like generated in the process of production. An effort has been made to assess scopes for interventions to help reduce the EF for the production unit under study. Alternative scenarios are identified and based on interaction with the unit the barriers were identified towards implementation of solutions for reducing EF under alternative scenarios.