Canadian mag pioneers the “wheat sheet”

Canadian Geographic’s annual environment issue, which hit newsstands last week, is the first glossy magazine in North America to be published on paper made from the pulp of wheat straw. The mag’s publishers hope to send a message to others in the industry that adding agricultural waste to pulp mix can provide a new source of revenue for wheat farmers while easing some of the demand of pulp from Canada’s boreal forests.

The “wheat sheet” is the product of a four-year project between Canadian Geographic, the Alberta Research Council and Markets Initiative, a Toronto-based environmental group dedicated to greening the publishing industry to protect ancient and endangered forests in Canada. It’s made from 20 percent wheat straw and 40 percent recycled paper, with the balance coming from more conventional wood-based pulps. Using straw-based pulps in paper manufacture can improve print quality, increase strength and reduce weight for a given paper thickness. The paper used in photographically-detailed magazines is among the most technically challenging paper grades to make, demonstrating it is also possible to manufacture other paper grades with agricultural fibre pulp content.

Since nobody in Canada pulps wheat straw, Canadian Geographic imported wheat-straw pulp from China for this issue, where wheat and rice straw have been used in paper for many years. However, according to Markets Initiative, the 15 million tonnes of cereal waste Canadian agriculture creates annually could be used to make 7.5 million tonnes of pulp, equivalent to about 80 percent of all the newsprint used in Canada in a given year.

The processing of wheat into pulp is less energy intensive than traditional wood processing and creates about half the ecological footprint.

“Our June issue uses sixty percent trees but looks and feels just like any other issue of Canadian Geographic,” said Rick Boychuk, senior editor at Canadian Geographic. “We’re delighted by this paper’s performance and hope it will be more widely available for North American publishers soon.”

The “wheat sheet” proves that Canada could diversify its paper fibre sources to include substantial amounts of straw left over from agricultural production.

Nearly 40 percent of trees logged in Canada’s ancient forests and 65 percent of trees from Canada’s boreal forests are currently used to produce pulp and paper. Check out our previous post about Markets Initiative to learn more their efforts to green the publishing industry.