Return to top. The Process of Making Paper Trees are stripped of their bark and chipped into small pieces. Chemical or mechanical grinders are used to separate or pulp the cellulose fibers. The pulp is rinsed and washed several times then bleached. Then it is formed into paper.
Chemical processing is very inefficient.
The conversion of chips to pulp requires about half the wood is discarded as waste and usually burned. The heat is often used to run the mill. The resulting paper is weaker and yellows easily. It is used to make newsprint or phonebooks. They have the highest pollution intensity or emissions per value of output of the 74 industrial sectors monitored by the government s Toxics Release Inventory In developing countries the pollution is even worse due to outdated technologies.