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Paper, which is in fact a very complex cellulose-based product derived from different lignocellulosic resources, is usually regarded as a simple omnipresent commodity in our lives. Wood fibers derived from trees are the most employed sources for papermaking purposes. From an environmental protection perspective, and for their essential role in our life (they give us the life itself through their foliar system supporting the photosynthesis process), trees should not be extensively cut down and they should be used less and less for papermaking. Thus, employment of non-woody alternative sources for papermaking could be exploited more as an attractive and feasible option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Through a close reading of the four issues of The Bowater Papers, this article aims to understand the rise of a paper modernity and to reinsert it--as material and infrastructure-- into media studies. Analysis: Producing wood paper is a strain on the landscape and the environment. The Bowater Papers showcases the histories and material possibilities of paper media products. A paper-dependent modernity can be understood as an infrastructural assemblage of harvesting, production, circulation, and consumption. Conclusion and implications: Paper calls for a natural history and geography of media. Thinking about the mediations from tree to paper through the encompassing notion of "xylomedia" is a way of articulating the intersection of the material, environmental, and infrastructural in media studies. Today is still a paper world, one that is also the age of lignin, package, and Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the wood anatomical description of 12 species characteristics from cloud forest in the State of México was carried out. For each species the qualitative and quantitative microscopic characters of wood are described. On the basis of the Runkel relationship, the quality of their fibers is classified to obtain pulp for paper. The morphological characteristics of each species are given, as well as their common names and national distribution. Eight species have growth rings formed by bands of fibers with lumens reduced and thick walls, or compressed radially, in the late wood. The porosity is diffuse; the vessels are small, with less than 100 µm diameter, and numerous. Several species presented vessel elements with scalariform perforation plates Vessel elements and fibers were medium and long. In general the axial parenchyma is scarce and in seven species the rays are heterogeneous type I. These results are similar to those obtained in other regions. According to the relationship of Runkel it was found out that the fibers are of medium to good quality for paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental design was performed to study the influence of process variables (135–175 °C for temperature, 60–120 min for pulping time and 15–25% for active alkali) on the properties of pulps (yield, Kappa index, viscosity, 1% NaOH solubles, alcohol–benzene extractives holocellulose, lignin and α-cellulose contents and brightness) and paper sheets (stretch index, burst index, and tear index) obtained from olive trimming residues. Obtaining pulps with acceptably high physical and chemical properties entails operating at a temperature of 175 °C for 90 min and 25% of active alkali. The paper sheets obtained from olive trimming residues pulps that were produced in different degrees of refining are characterised for their stretch index, burst index, and tear index. An increase in the different parameters for the paper sheet upon increasing the degree of refining is found. All pulps reached between 33 and 39 kN m/kg in the stretch index, between 1.5 and 2 kN/g for the burst index and 0.7–2.5 N m2/g for the tear index and not in excess of the refining degree (<45 °SR). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article, the author comments on the copying machines and printers used in his school and the amount of papers they consume. He says that one of the copiers is more than three feet high and five and a half feet long and is being compared to a Bengal tiger. It says that the copiers consume 286,000 sheets of paper each month, which can be as tall as 95 feet when stack up and 422 miles long when cut into 1-inch wide strips. It says that 10 million trees are being cut annually to make papers.

The article highlights the results of a study on the quantity of paper that comes from one tree by Phil Whiteman of Grand Ridge Plantations, operating in the Strzelecki Ranges, Victoria. The findings include: a typical plantation eucalypt has a volume of 1 m³, wood density is about 500 kg m³ requiring 7.14 liters of wood, pulp yield is about 50 percent requiring 3.57 kg of oven-dried wood, copy paper is about 80 percent fiber and 20 percent calcium carbonate and one ream of paper has 500 sheets and has area of 31.185 m².

Highlights the application of genetic engineering in altering a key gene in aspen trees in the United States. Percentage of lignin reduction achieved by researchers at Michigan Technological University; Use of lignin; Effect of genetic engineering to the height of trees.