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138 Business View Australia - January-February 2016
MANUFA
enced a record boom in construc-
tion, much of the growth has been
filled by sawn softwood from as far
afield as Europe. This is, in part, be-
cause we aren’t providing sufficient
plantation resource in this country
for our domestic sawmills.”
Challenges before the
paper industry
It is widely believed that the use
of paper depletes natural resourc-
es and degrades the environment.
This fallacy is reinforced by a stand-
ard message on many emails stat-
ing, “Please don’t print this email
unless you really need to”. The mes-
sage intends to remind the reader
that printing wastes paper and ulti-
mately leads to deforestation.
As paper is manufactured from re-
newable resources, its use is not
harmful to the environment. On the
contrary, it has been estimated that
using a web-based newspaper for an
average reading time of 30 minutes
results in higher carbon emissions
compared to a conventional newspa-
per. Computers and their peripheral
equipment contribute to harming the
environment and in Australia more
than 234 million items of e-waste
ends up in landfill each year.
The pulp and paper products in-
dustry is an important part of the
national economy and a provider of
many skilled jobs. It directly employs
18,000 people in both outer metro-
politan and regional areas and sup-
ports a further 22,000 indirect jobs.
Sales turnover for the pulp and pa-
per industry averages around $9.6
billion per year and wood and pa-