How is the paper made, where does the ink come from and who fastens the staples. The platform on which the seventh power grows
Arena Kazin
From the Passover supplement, Haaretz, 6/5/01
The trees fall in the forest, but you don't hear them from the road. to find the
The woodcutter has to go a few tens of meters inside, on a soft path
and snowy, curving through hills of pine and fir trees. to stop. Shut up
the engine. Open the door and listen. The intense cold, minus 7 degrees, blows
Inside and with it fresh, sweet smells of needles and branches and resin and snow
mixed with moist soil. silence. The forest sounds deserted.
Niklas Christianson, the man who rents the trees from which the paper is made
The newspaper in your hand is finally discovered in the thick of the forest in the middle of the work. It
The last day of February, and winter in southern Sweden is coming to an end.
Christianson, a light-haired man with a thick body, dressed in a warm coat, wearing a hat
Wool and wearing gloves, moving forward and jumping over bumps, maneuvering between pine trees
Huddled, protected from the cold inside his ""Harvester.
It's a funny machine, which looks like a toy of giants: the lumberjack himself
Sitting inside a glass box, on a chair connected to strong springs. he
Drives using gear levers, and drives each of four wheels separately
Thick and tall wrapped in iron chains - almost nothing stands
in their faces. He knocks down the trees, which are about 15 meters high
Using a long iron arm, with a knife at the top. The bionic arm picks up the
The fallen trunk, you peel it from its branches and cut it into pieces with impressive precision
of 3 meters each. When leaning on the trunks lying on the ground, it is possible
Count the rings at their base and find out their age. These trees are young:
This one is 15 years old, this one is 18 years old, and the taller one is 20 years old
The welfare of the woodcutter, the human foundation on which the paper industry stands
The big one is just one of the moral issues we asked to find out during this visit.
Many times so many industries of daily consumer products, which use
in materials from nature, accumulating a lot of capital while exploiting people and resources,
through wasteful, unrestrained and unscrupulous action. but
Christianson, 40 years old, has been in the profession for 12 years and does not complain.
Although it is hard work, he testifies. Eight hours alone in the heart of the forest. on the 6th
In the morning, when he comes in here, it's completely dark. He turns on spotlights
that cast simulated daylight on the trees. In the months of December and January it is dark
lasts almost the entire working day. But now it's noon and the lights are on
Off and soft sunlight caresses the trees and shimmers on the surface of the snow. You
He carefully selects the trees for felling: "I only cut down the smallest trees
Beautiful, the thinner ones," he says. "I thin the forest, I don't eliminate it
him. I give room for the big and beautiful trees to continue to develop."
And every shift, for two hours, he gets off the machine, walking through the thicket
The forest, and working by hand with the electric saw, cuts down the trees for them
The machine fails to approach. It is a very physical, exhausting job. but
According to him, the work on the harvester is not as easy as it seems either.
"Shoulders hurt at the end of the day. I have to be very focused, guard
About balancing, grabbing the trees and moving the machine, all at once.
My muscles are always tight." And, he says, "Sometimes I feel
Single. I don't see anyone for a whole day. But actually I like it.
the silence and the physical work. I love the trees and the animals and the
The birds." And the salary, he says, could be better but only in total
Everything is reasonable. "This is the average salary in the Swedish economy. Not bad."
without human contact
Haaretz's regular newsprint is produced a few kilometers away
From the forest of Christianson, Bhilta, a plant of the Stora-Enso Corporation
(StoraEnso) which sits in the heart of Hiltbroek, a small village in southwestern Sweden.
The trunks that fell in the forest are piled on trucks and transported to Hilta
and other paper factories in the area. The factory in Hilta, which specializes in paper production
A regular newspaper, is just one of 50 Stora-Enso factories in Europe,
in the United States, China and Brazil. Other papers, such as the bleached paper
of this additive, are produced in other factories.
The structure of the paper market is special: even though Stora-Enso is the second largest corporation
In the global paper industry, after the corporation "- "Paper Corp
International's sales in 2000 were estimated at 13 billion euros,
And it produces 15.4 million tons of paper and cardboard per year - nevertheless
It occupies no more than 5% of the market. Johan Hoff, the plant's marketing person
Bhilta, says that the market is still very decentralized, but not for long. already
Now the various factories coordinate and regulate their management
the forests, the collection of recycled paper, and especially the price of paper. in the future
The situation will be even worse: every day more mergers are made between
The many companies, and in the coming years the paper industry will resemble other industries
In the world - power will be concentrated in a few hands, there will be layoffs, there will be
Cuts, and the prices will only go up and up.
The Swedish paper industry has other special characteristics - especially in the field
The consideration of the environment - but perhaps the most striking feature of all is this: almost
People don't see her. Kristiansson's glowing loneliness hovers over
The face of the entire production process, from the forest in Sweden to the new printing plant of
"Haaretz" in Tel Yitzhak.
The efficient machine has taken over everything. The trunks that fell in different forests throughout
Sweden - from the north of the country come pines that grow slowly and have long fibers,
And from the south, in the Hilta area, young trees whose fibers are relatively short and weak
- They enter the factory yard in a hurry and pile up in an orderly manner, a process that almost
No human hand is involved. There are about 20 thousand cubic meters of wood here.
The breeds do not wait more than five days in the yard, the turnover is fast - to
For the paper to be fine, it is important that the wood be fresh and retain its shine, so they
Prominent in the field, brown stripes in the white heart, the snow is not enough to cover
them.
Very few hands also work inside the factory in Hilta, which was established in 1907 under
The name Stora (Swedish Stora, which has existed for 700 years, merged with Enso
Finnish in 1998). Over the years, as the factory grew, the number of employees decreased
at him. Today it is made up of a series of huge gray buildings, four of them
Enormous paper machines, each towering two buildings tall
floors. They produce the newsprint from recycled paper and wood logs,
which are processed by different methods. Only 950 people work here, in the big factory
in Europe to produce newsprint, in shifts, 24 hours a day. on a machine
One, which is several dozen meters long and produces thousands of tons of paper
No more than six laborers work per day. And most of the time they stand
Behind large glass windows and watching computer screens. when they
Going out to the square where the machine is standing, they dwarf her, looking like
little children.
Of course, technology that removes people from its path has quite a few advantages.
For example: Thanks to technological improvements, the narrow Nissan River, which flows quietly
At the heart of the plant, only a small part of its cold water contributes to the production process
("To produce a ton of paper in Hilta, only 8 cubic meters of water are needed," he says
Hoff, "Compared to 700 cubic meters of water per ton of paper in factories in Russia - it's a lot
less economical"); from the machines the river flows to an efficient purification plant,
which returns to the water the oxygen it took from it, and continues to flow - fairly clean - all
The road to Halmstad, the coastal city two hours away from the factory, and out to
the sea "In the 50s, things looked different, we caused quite a bit of injustice
to the environment," Hoff continues. "We polluted the river. Every time we changed color
In the machine, the river would change color. In the 60s it was decided to change the
the process and produce only newsprint, without colors." And in the 70s they established
Bhilta first had a purification plant and since then they have been gradually improving their attitude
To nature, the source of their livelihood.
Washed, shredded, pressed, crushed
The entrance from the factory yard to the production halls is stunning. minus 7 degrees
Celsius outside, one enters a summer Mediterranean climate, and a temperature of
30 degrees. Earplugs are a must, must muffle the noise a little
the plower The logs move on their own towards their destination. They travel inside
A long tunnel on wide rubber bands, fall into a tunnel, get out
from it without the peel (the peel is collected later and used for production
the energy that drives the machines), and are stretched into a large carousel, where
They move, fall, bump into each other, wash away, crumble, squeeze,
Crushed, ground and come out of the other past in the form of chips. hot
and stuffy here. A pungent smell of perfume fills the nostrils. "It's the turpentine
which is extracted from the tree," Hof explains with a shout, trying to overcome the noise.
The smell in the paper recycling machine, which works at the same time in another hall, is pleasant
less. It's the smell of garbage, of damp and moldy paper. Here, unlike other lines
The production, you can see several workers working with their hands. They help
for the machine to separate newspapers and magazines from chromo paper. paper
The newspaper is transported on a rail into a machine that looks like a huge washing machine. he
Shredded and ground and broken down with fiber chemicals. In another hall prevails again
Other smell: bittersweet, very rich smell of paint and ink. Here you take out the
The colors from the used newspapers. Blow compressed air into the water solution
and fiber. The ink sticks to the air bubbles, detaches from the solution and comes out.
At the beginning of the process the solution is black. In the end it was light gray.
The wood chips are finely ground in large millstones and decomposed using heat
high and chemicals for detached fibers. The fibers from the different trees are transported
with the recycled paper solution to the paper machine. At the entrance to a complex machine
The solution is 99% water and 1% fiber. The water and fibers pass inside
The machine, between huge cylinders that are 8 meters long and rotate rapidly
Towards each other, almost next to each other. From the movement, the friction and the heat
The paper is created: during the process the water gradually comes out and only remains
The fibers, which are reattached to each other in two-way links. At the end of the road passes
The paper is dried, and when it comes out of the machine - strong and smooth - it has 91%
fiber and 9% water. The long rolls of paper are cut into small rolls. also
Here, at the end of the process, you can see a rare sight: two or three workers
touch the paper with their hands. They push the cut rolls that came out
from the machine, close them with adhesive paper and mark them with labels.
Sitting, behind the showcase
In recent years, the paper industry has grown by leaps and bounds, and it is exciting
Hence suspicion and concern. The loggers are not directly employed by me
the paper companies but by the owners of the forests, and it has already become clear that their situation,
At least in Sweden, not bad. But what about the few workers who are still there?
employed in the production process, in high heat, in shifts around the clock,
In machines that do not stop producing but four times a year: in one
January, Christmas, Easter and May Day? Are they being exploited? and important
No less: how will forests remain in the world, if all the trees fall and are ground
Paper thin? And how do you move all this paper to the ends of the earth? some damage
Does this industry make its way to the readers at home?
Judging by the words of Mikkel Svensson, one of the production workers
In a flash, the first concern can be removed from the agenda. He is 27 years old
Alone in a house surrounded by forests in Milea, a tiny village of four families
and is a few kilometers away from the factory. He has been working at Hilta since 1995
and slowly progressed through the professional ranks. He says he “loves
very much the work". He started at the low level, in the simple craft of
The arrangement of the rolls at the end of the process was transferred to the role responsible for the dryer part
At the machine, he learned to be a machine operator, and now he sits behind me
The showcase together with three members of the shift. In his responsibility tens of meters of
machine, from the section where the fibers enter to the section where the paper exits.
The workday, he says, is fairly easy when there are no mishaps. morning shift
It starts at six in the morning, in a conversation with the night shift people who report on
Events that happened during their responsibility. "If there was a good shift, the briefing continued
5 minutes. If not, maximum 20 minutes. When there are problems, we sit and talk
on them. The night shift also informs us who the customer is, what thickness of paper
And to what size should the rolls be cut? Today we make paper
to customers in Norway and Israel." Most of the paper sent to "Haaretz" is
weighing 45 grams, in rolls of different sizes: 160 cm wide, 120
cm or 80 cm, and with a diameter of 1.25 meters or 1 meter.
Swanson says that after the briefing "we drink a cup of coffee to start the day"
(And it won't be the only cup he'll drink during the day. Sweden is
The largest consumer of coffee, mainly filter coffee, in the world. They are almost non-existent
drink other drinks), and go out to check the machines. to gather information.
to see that everything flows. They touch the paper, make sure it looks good,
And at 9:30 we meet with the supervisor to give him the details. "Today was not
A lot to report," says Swanson. "There's just a little problem with signs,
Thin streaks, along the paper, that appeared on the back of the machine. It's possible
which is because of excess water. We are trying to regulate the amounts of water again to
fix the problem". The repairs are done behind the showcase, in the room
The silence, where you can take the earplugs out. most of the time sitting
in front of the computer. Calculate calculations. watching supervisors.
"When I got here," says Swanson, "there were no computers. Everything was manual.
In 1998 we built the new machine, with the computers, and learned to operate them.
Now the work is usually easy and does not require physical effort, only mental effort.
When there are faults, you have to replace parts by hand and pull the fibers by hand and that's it
very hard But it's also very rare."
It seems that the attitude towards employees at Hilta is quite good. Employed human engineering consultant
In a full-time factory: she makes sure that the workers are sitting comfortably and that they are not
endangering their health in the machinery area. Johann Hoff says that a number
Worker injuries have decreased from 25 injuries per year in the early 90s
for 11 injuries last year. Most of the injuries are cuts and sprains
sprained "We work very hard to reduce them to a minimum," he said
Says.
Mikkel Svensson does not use it, but the factory has a gym
Sophisticated, for the enjoyment of the workers, who sit for long hours a day and do not move
the body "I do my fitness with the saw in the forest. It's a forest that belongs
The family has been around for decades.
Every free day I go out with the saw and cut trees." He cuts the trees
He chops for his own use, for heating the house, and also to sell them to the industry
The paper and the furniture. "It's hard work in the forest," he says, but like
Christianson, he loves her.
The work in shifts is arranged in such a way that after every three working days there is a holiday
of two days. For a week's vacation, he goes out once every seven rounds
shifts A round, by the way, includes three shifts: morning shift, seven hours
rest; night shift, seven hours rest; and lunch shift. according to him,
The salary is fine: 27,000 kroner (NIS 13,500) a month. and the meals
The factory restaurant is excellent (a lot of meat, the cakes are also delicious, and there are lots of them
coffee). And he has a lot of time left to spend in nature. "It suits me to live alone",
says Swanson. "I enjoy my free hours in the forest. I also studied
I like my friends for the shift, but we don't meet in the afternoon
at home The work here together is very intense. It would be too much to go on
That on days off."
Two trees per reader per year
Although in Israel newspapers are closing one after another, and also a rich culture of
Reading magazines does not develop here. But in the world of journalism, the situation is the opposite.
New opening newspapers for mornings. The factory in Hilta produces about 780 thousand
a ton of paper per year, and besides "Haaretz", "Yediot Ahronoth" and "Maariv",
His biggest clients are the German newspapers, chief among them "Zee Deutsche
Zeitung", the Swedish newspapers, led by "Aftonbladt", and newspapers
British like "The Mirror" and "The Sun".
In Scandinavian countries, the rate of reading newspapers (and also reading books)
It is one of the highest in the world, and the variety of newspapers is wide. Hoff says the paper market
We have been enjoying a lot recently from the expanding phenomenon of free newspaper distribution, in large numbers
Copies, in subway stations in Scandinavian countries and large cities
Like New York and London.
But most of the expected growth in the market, Hoff says, is related to the process
The modernization that Chinese society is going through. The more Chinese can read
And write and go through a process of urbanization, so the consumption of paper increased there. Newspapers
Newly founded, printed books. It is impossible to speculate on potential at all
The market is there.
"At Ericsson, the Swedish communications company, a few years ago they announced
The office is paperless," Hoff smiles. "You can say that for a brief moment we were worried. but
It quickly became clear how wrong they were." Today, it is known that even the Internet -
Including the online newspapers - increases the production of paper in the world.
Hilta actually does not produce paper for printers; This is done in other factories
and in another way. To produce paper for printers, they are removed from the tree, in a chemical process
Prolonged, the ligvin, the substance that binds the fibers in the wood and causes delay
More for the yellowing of the newsprint. Paper is therefore produced for the computer industry
Bleached, thick, that lasts for a long time. And the demand for this paper is only increasing
(By the way, Hoff claims that there is no environmental advantage in wood-free paper. Because also
It is extracted from a tree, "but most of its components are simply removed from the tree
and use for this purpose a greater amount of chemicals").
Either way, this growth in the industry seemingly threatens a direct threat to
The forests of the earth. The newsprint on which these words are printed,
Consists of 50% recycled paper - from newspapers collected throughout Scandinavia
And in Germany - from 50% fresh wood from the forest.
According to Hoff, a ton of recycled paper saves 14 trees (but the use of paper
Recycled is limited: 85% of recycled paper is used for remanufacturing after
that the color comes off, but after five times of recycling the newspaper comes out
from use, because it does not have enough fiber).
In a rough calculation, one can state that one subscription to "Haaretz" consumes for a year
Two pine trees in the Swedish forest. 100 thousand newspaper readers in Israel
Responsible for the destruction of 200 thousand trees in Sweden per year. Cutting down a tree takes time
second. Its growth lasts between 20 and 40 years. Most of the trees for industry are cut down
in natural forests. Growing in plantations yields trees with too weak fibers.
But Hoff says that it's a miracle that there are more trees in Sweden today than there were in the middle
20th century. In past years, the industry used to eliminate forests of trees
Ancient, hundreds of years old, and these have almost disappeared from the face of the earth. but
Today the laws in Sweden are getting stricter: first, don't touch the few trees
The ancients that still remain. And secondly, when whole sections of forest are cut down
Naturally, we must plant about 3,000 in the clearing that was created, within three years
Seedlings per 100 square meters. When thinning the forest, as it does
Christianson, and leave in it trees that seed the forest naturally,
It must be ensured that this amount of trees will be replanted within five years.
And the laws are also strict regarding the use of chemicals. Do not spray
from planes. No substances harmful to animals are used. users
In materials that eliminate a harmful beetle, but are not harmful to deer and the rest
forest animals
"In the world of materials, the wood industry is relatively good," says Hoff, "because
that we return and grow the raw material. It's not over, neither are we
Eliminate him."
Six people make a newspaper
It turns out that care is also taken in the process of transporting the paper rolls to the printing machines
Bastura-we will try to minimize pollution and damage to the environment. The paper from Sweden is coming
to Israel by ship. For customers in Europe it is delivered, for the most part,
In the least harmful form of transportation possible - by train.
Only at the printing stage do some influential materials enter the newsprint
harmful Although also here, at the printing factory in Tel Yitzhak, which was established about two years ago
and a half, you hardly see workers in the big halls. the number of hands
Involvement in the printing process has decreased over the years. on shift of workers
responsible for the operation of a printing press the size of a high-rise building,
No more than six people work. And again, most of them are sitting behind me
Showcase, in front of the computer.
And in any case, the articles and photographs are currently moving from the building on Shoken Street in Tel
Aviv, through the computer, directly to the photographic paper in Tel Yitzhak and from there to the board
The pattern (plate) and to the Swedish paper rolls. A few years ago it still was
It is necessary to move the arranged columns physically - in the taxis they added
For air pollution - from the system in south Tel Aviv to the plant located in Yavne.
Now everything is virtual, except for the print itself.
But in the printing process another contamination is created: the colors, with which printing is done
The newspaper - the division is usually 20% black, 40% yellow, 20%
Red and 20% blue - imported from paint factories in England, Holland and Germany.
According to Danny Getter, a veteran printer, the colors are made from pigment powder
Chemically, incinerators of all kinds and oil based on petroleum. "There are in the industry
Tendency to switch to vegetable fat based paints, because it is friendlier
For the environment and all this nonsense," he grins, "but not with us." As a matter of fact
Fortunately, the amount of colors in a copy of the newspaper is not large: only about half
Kilogram of paint per thousand sheets.
A substance is also mixed in the water used to wash the printing plates and regulate the color
A chemical that is supposed to improve the "surface tension of the water", according to Getter. the water
The harsh Israelis pass through a purification machine operating at the heart of the factory,
"Salts, calcium, scale are removed from them, and the additive is added to them
the chemical, which further improves their quality." The staples, which close parts
Some of the newspaper, come in rolls of galvanized wire; and paste,
which connects other parts of the newspaper, are fed into the machine in small quantities
And just impressively in the middle of the printing process.
But all in all, it seems that the factory in Tel Yitzhak is also channeling the spirit of consideration for man and the environment that blows from Scandinavia. In the process of cutting the paper into sheets, small and thin pieces of wasted paper are ejected from the rolls.
But nothing is lost here. The small pieces of paper are compressed into large blue containers, which hold 10 tons of paper each. Trucks from the large Amnir recycling plant come every day to the plant's yard to empty the containers. 100 tons of paper waste per week go to the recycling plant and are used there to create new products. True, in Israel there is no longer an effective collection of complete newspapers at a national level. But that's also something.
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