Industry organisation the Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA) has partnered with GM Television to create a series of short videos of how paper products are made and recycled for the popular How It’s Made YouTube channel.

“Many people are not aware of what goes into making everyday products, such as toilet paper, envelopes, packaging paper or office paper, or how paper is recycled. This has led to large parts of the population underestimating the contribution of the pulp and paper industry to South African society,” PAMSA said.

“This sector is an essential service that produces pulp, printing and writing paper, and packaging paper, as well as tissue products. From forestry to paper to recycling, the greater sector employs close to 150 000 people, and indirectly supports thousands of livelihoods through recycling,” said PAMSA executive director Jane Molony.

“We saw the fact that many people do not know this as an opportunity to make relevant and local content for anyone wishing to understand what happens behind the scenes in a paper mill.”

The series includes videos about paper recycling sorting and grading, the manufacture of printing and writing paper from wood, the making of envelopes, how recycled paper is made into papers bags and how toilet paper is made.

“Aside from making significant economic contributions, paper is also a renewable and sustainable product,” she explained.

The wood fibre that goes into the making of paper is sourced from the sustainably managed plantations that grow largely in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. Trees are planted and grown in an environmentally responsible way until they are mature enough for harvesting. Only 10% of the trees are harvested each year while new trees are being propagated in nurseries, getting ready to take the place of their older counterparts.

“These trees are also carbon-capturing machines, absorbing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, storing it for growth and giving us oxygen,” Molony said.

Further, paper, as a harvested wood product, continues to store the carbon even when it is made into packaging, office paper or envelopes.

“Paper’s recyclability means that it can be used to make all manner of items, not least of which includes paper packaging such as boxes and toilet paper. The videos depict this in an insightful and engaging way,” she said.

VIDEOS
The Press print video takes viewers to Mondi's Merebank mill in Durban, where the company transforms wood into a "wonderfully white blank canvas for our thoughts and words".

In the Pushing the Envelope video, viewers are shown how Merpak makes millions of envelopes every day in different colours, shapes and sizes. Viewers see how they are cut, punched, folded, glued, dried, and made ready to carry mail, at a rate of 650 units a minute.

In the Yesterday’s Cardboard Box, Today’s Paper Bag video, viewers are shown how paper is sorted into various grades and sent to be repulped at Neopak’s Pretoria-based paper recycling mill, and “waste” paper is given a new lease on life, again and again, as part of the circular economy of paper making and recycling.

In the PapEr Sorting And Grading video, viewers see how old cardboard boxes and used office paper enter the collection system through formal or informal waste collectors, and sorted and graded at Mpact’s Durban facility, enabling it to produce up to 25, 1 000 kg bales an hour.

Finally, in the Toilet Paper video, viewers see how each toilet roll is the result of a complex, ultra-high-speed manufacturing process, with thousands of rolls produced every hour at Kimberly-Clark’s local production line that operates 24/7/365, PAMSA said.