Update on global use of non-wood plant fibers and some prospects for their greater use in the United States

The global increase in capacity for production of non-wood plant fiber pulps has increased dramatically, during the past 22 years, going from 9.3 million metric tons, or 6.9% of total papermaking pulp capacity in 1975 to 23 million tons in 1997, or 10.9% of total capacity. It is projected to go to 24 million metric ton during 1998 or to 11.2% of total global papermaking pulp capacity. Furthermore, the average annual increase in non-wood pulping capacity has been appreciably higher than the average annual increase in wood pulping capacity, being more than 2.5 times as great from 1975 to 1988, more than three times as fast between 1988 and 1993, and more than 2.8 times as fast during the 1993 to 1998. The increase in global capacity for non-wood pulping between 1997 and 1998 is projected to be a huge 4.7 percent. Straw, bagasse and bamboo are the leading fibers being used, from a quantity standpoint, but many other nonwood plant fibers are also being used, especially for specialty pulps. Pulp production in some five countries is based 100% on non-wood plant fibers and at least nine countries depend upon non-wood fibers for more than 50% of their pulp production, with China and India being the leaders. As a result of the modern technology, which has been developed for collecting, storing, handling and pulping these raw materials, the economics of using them has improved tremendously since straw was abandoned as a primary raw material in many mills in the Midwest, who were producing corrugating medium. This advanced technology, most of which was originally developed in the U.S., for pulping bagasse, is already in use in many countries and has been applied to straw, bamboo, reeds, grasses and cotton linters, and will undoubtedly be applied to other non-wood plant fibers, including kenaf, in the future. From a technical and quality standpoint, any grade of paper, paperboard or reconstituted panelboard can be produced by using a combination of various non-wood plant fiber pulps, for 100% of the fibrous furnish. However, in the U.S. and Canada, pulpwood will continue to be king, but some of the non-wood fibers are expected to become important supplementary fibrous raw materials. The non-wood plant fibers, which appear to have the greatest prospects for major use in the U.S., are bagasse, cereal straws, seed grass straw, kenaf and possibly grain sorghum stalks. One of the primary opportunities for installation of a green field mill of economic size, relates to a concentration of bagasse availability, in certain areas of Louisiana, which could support up to 500 to 600 tons daily of bleached bagasse pulp production. If this is combined with growing kenaf on the 25% of the cane lands, in such an areas, which lie fallow each year, a major integrated bagasse based writing and printing paper mill would be highly competitive economically with any wood based mill for production of these grades. What greatly favors the economics of such a mill is the low price of natural gas which would be furnished to the sugar mill to replace the moist depithed bagasse furnished to the pulp mill. There are also excellent opportunities for economical use of straw as a supplementary raw material. It is pointed out that some rather irresponsible claims have been made recently, in the media, relative to the great potential for the use of common hemp (Cannabis Sativa) for manufacture of all grades of paper, to replace wood and thus save our forests from destruction. Such claims are completely unfounded and must be put in the proper perspective. In actual fact, the prospects for the potential use of common hemp stalks, as a papermaking raw material are extremely limited, to a few specialty grades. In fact, when hemp was readily available, in the U.S., during World War II, it was not used by the pulp and paper industry. It is projected that the use of non-wood plant fibers, globally, will continue to accelerate at a rapid rate, and the time may be approaching, in some areas in the U.S., when Paper Company Executives realize that the use of some of these fibers, is already economical and would result in profitable operations, as supplementary fibrous raw materials.