As the UK is the world’s fifth largest consumer of paper products, the environmental impact is immense.
Specialist education supplier, The Consortium, has taken one of the country’s most used paper items – the traditional school exercise book – and identified a sustainable tree-free alternative made entirely of sugar cane waste.
Known as Bagasse, this agricultural crop waste is the fibrous residue that is left over after sugar crystals are harvested from the plant.
According to the manufacturers, for every kilogram of traditional paper produced, an astounding 98 kilos of other resources is needed. It takes the same amount of energy to produce a tonne of paper as a tonne of steel.
Add to this the 786 million trees that are cut down annually - just to keep the world in paper for one year - and the need to produce more sustainable paper products becomes ever more apparent.
The Consortium’s new BE-Books are sourced from developing countries by the Wiltshire-based company in line with the universally accepted principles of the UN Global Compact.
The Consortium is one of 4,000 companies worldwide that have signed up to this strategic policy initiative as a commitment to aligning their operations and strategies in ways that can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance will benefit economies and societies everywhere.
Typically, sugar cane takes 12 months to reach maturity (normally standing two to six metres tall) with the time varying widely throughout the world from six months to 24 months depending on where it is grown.
Melanie Teal, Chief Executive of The Consortium, said: “Where sugar cane differs from many crops is that it regrows from the roots, so the plant lasts for many cycles. And when it’s harvested, most of the waste is used in the boilers that power the harvesting process, with the remainder being used to make paper. It’s a really sustainable solution”.
Using agricultural crops rather than wood has the added advantage of reducing deforestation, which goes some way to protecting fragile ecosystems that would otherwise break down as a result of logging in forested areas.
Teal added: “Exercise books are a fundamental part of school life, so product quality is really important to us too. Our BE-Books are of an exceptional standard at 80gsm.”
They are priced from 38p per book, costing the same as The Consortium’s conventional paper books.
“In this instance it costs no more to buy an eco-friendly green product than a conventional wood-based paper product,” explained Teal. “The Consortium is the first supplier to source this product and with sustainability becoming increasingly important in the classroom, we think that once schools have tried these exercise books, there will be no going back.”
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