Paper: Staying ahead of a Malthusian ghost

Though production began seven decades ago, the paper industry faces long-term diminishing results without thinking outside the traditional box. When the Daud Group established the Karnafuli Paper Mills (KPM) in Chandragona (Chittagong), in 1953, bamboo and hardwood supplied the raw materials from a paltry forest coverage that has also been declining in size ever since. If that was not enough, with over a hundred-odd paper mills today, the industry faces a domestic demand that has spiralled out of control: not only has the population almost quadrupled since the beginning, but the per capita consumption has also exploded given the shift from a traditional society, the absence of a conservational instinct, and the scavenging effects of the Internet era. In short, a Taka 25 billion industry capable of producing half a million tons of paper annually and employing just under 30,000 people (accounting for almost 1.0 per cent of the country's labour force), finds itself stuttering with the old model.

How did we get where we are without taking precautionary measures? What do we do to get out of the plight? Thinking outside the box is not a cliché: it holds the answer to preserving our forestry by adopting tree-free alternatives and fine-tuning our lifestyles.

In addition to the 1953 KPM emergence with a 30,000 metric tons (MT) capacity, the Khulna Newsprint Mills (KNM), adding another 50,000 MT, saw us through the Pakistan years, located as they were, close to our major forest areas. Since independence, the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation opened the North Bengal Paper Mills (NBPM) in 1973, the Sylhet Pulp & Paper Mills (SPPM) in 1975, and the Magura Paper Mills (MPM), adding 50,000 MT in all. Until the privatisation spree began in the early 1980s, these dominated the industry; but with privatisation, except the KPM plant all others disappeared or were transformed as about a 100-odd new mills invaded the industry, reducing the once-iconic KPM share to less than 5.0 per cent of the market. Interestingly, whereas KPM production still relies on domestic inputs, the private companies look abroad for them or turn to recycling. Meghna Group (Dhaka), Bashundhara Paper Mills (Munshiganj), and T.K. Paper (Kalurghat, Chittagong) have slowly emerged among the production leaders, while Base Textiles (Dhaka) and Uttara Motors (in Dhamrai, Manikganj), as Dr. Shaheed Mohammed Jalil noted in this newspaper (March 16, 2013), set the innovative pace.

Both innovation and energy diversification are central to salvaging the country's paper demands. Innovation means turning away from our meagre forest resources. Based on research whose findings were presented at the 2003 World Forestry Congress, M. Sarwar Jahan made the case for non-wood (or agro-based) fibres, which, he then estimated, supplied 11 per cent of the pulp production worldwide, with China and India as industrial monopolists. He particularly pointed out the promises offered by jute (both wood and fibre), straw from grains (rice and wheat), cotton stalks (which is a leftover farmers typically burn owing to the expenses of not doing so), bagasse (by-product of sugar), and dhanicha (used against beach erosion). He further calculated how much are typically available each year: rice straw leads the list with 11,000 MT, bagasse comes next with 1,200 MT, wheat straw 1,000, jute 812, dhanicha 50, cotton stacks 36, and corn stalks 20. Since these are all renewable annually (some biennially), and simultaneously serve as inputs of other industries (food, textiles), what had hitherto been largely inefficient paper production gets revitalised even more effectively, rather than add to waste (for example, be burned, thus aggravating environmental damage in addition).

Much more attention must be paid to lifestyle changes. Recycling, for example, is virtually absent in the country, but with conscious efforts, a lot more can be recovered from waste to fuel future production: like cotton stalks, even clothes, torn rope, used paper and boxes, as well as cane residues. Base Textiles's de-inking technology and Uttara Motors's security paper in the former SPPM facility exemplify cross-industry fertilisation of future value, but, since they also assume the availability of paper, only alternatives that are tree-free can guarantee that.

Complementing innovation and lifestyle changes is the effort put into making more efficient usage of limited energy supplies. Engineer Anwar A. Khan advocates expanded cogeneration usage in paper mills: using low pressure steam for process heat (cooking and chemically treating raw materials), and high pressure steam for electricity (pulping), with three-quarters of the energy going into the former, the remainder for the latter. He notes cogeneration has already permeated some of the plants, and although up to 35MT are already being generated, he reckons this could easily be expanded to 50MT.

According to Dr. Engineer M.M. A Quader, one out of every 10 acre of the country, mostly in the hilly regions, has been underutilised, unused, or used inefficiently. Though our demand of 700,000 MT annually falls short by 100,000 MT, huge future increases require better utilisation of this 10 per cent of land. Not only that, but also to produce more virgin fibres (wood and pulp), since the KPM facility continues to be the only pulp plant in the country: changing this, not just by increasing pulp mills, but also recycling, and then, if necessary, importing pulp. All other plants manufacture only paper and board. He counted and listed 71 from 2011, with a daily output of 2,023 MT, while six were then envisaged with a net 450 MT daily capacity.

Of course, modernising existing machines also continues, as exemplified by T.L. Paper becoming the largest paper mill in the country and Bashundhara's massive expansion. Though these actions reinforce the old model, as Shaheed Mohammed Jalil also noted, our imports declined by 20 per cent by 2013 precisely because of sprucing up traditional approaches and experimenting with the new. If these continue, the decline of import would help us balance the trade account-book and, in the best case scenario, enhance the export ledger. The best years of the potentially Taka 60 billion industry might still lie ahead, even for a country with a breathtaking growth-rate record.

What is at stake is not so much production enhancement as consumption patterns being reordered. While the next (and second-last) industry to be examined in this series, the ready-made garments (RMG) sector informs us what has worked better in the production side of the ledger, with an emphasis on quantity, the paper industry joins hands with the pharmaceutical to expose both the quality and eco-friendliness of consumption as necessary steps toward finessing production inputs and technologies.

Dr Imtiaz A Hussain is Professor, International Relations,

formerly Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City.

[email protected]