Volume 04, Number 6
Dec 1991

News

Quicklime does not Decompose PCBs, After All

Last spring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a preliminary report that quicklime (calcium oxide) decomposed PCBs in contaminated soils and sludge and made them innocuous. Like all news that is almost too good to be true, it spread rapidly, from EPA to the Wall Street Journal to PIMA Magazine to the Alkaline Paper Advocate for August.

Now the final report is in, with a total retraction. The November 11 Chemical & Engineering News gives some of the details:

The agency's [EPA's] Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory in Cincinnati spiked soil samples with PCB congeners and treated them with quicklime. Almost all the disappearance of PCB was the result of evaporation and steam stripping at the resulting elevated temperatures. Only stoichiometrically trivial amounts of partially dechlorinated PCBs were detected.... An archived sample of PCB-contaminated sludge, which purportedly was free of PCBs after quicklime treatment, was found to contain levels of PCBs of 200 ppm. EPA concludes this is not an effective method of PCB destruction.

Recycled Paper

• The American Paper Institute, in its fifth annual report of paper recycling statistics, says that the U.S. recycling rate has been increasing every year during that period and that the 1990 recovery rate was 33.3% of annual consumption. Some was exported, but most (21.8 million tons) was used to make new products. Recovered paper made up 27.1% of the total fiber used by U.S. paper and paperboard producers.
• Xerox Corporation announced in August that it had a new line of recycled papers for use in Xerox copiers, duplicators and printing systems, and in other business equipment. It is called, appropriately, Xerox Recycled Paper. Like other Xerox papers, it is made to Xerox's exacting specifications by mills on a custom basis, and works in other brand-name machines as well. This paper is 50% waste fiber, 1/5 of which (10% of the total fiber content) is postconsumer waste. One carton (5000 sheets) costs almost $80, a bit more expensive than a comparable grade made from virgin fiber. The label does not specify whether the paper in the carton is acid or alkaline, but sometimes it is alkaline.
• According to a recent study done by E.H. Pechan & Associates for EPA, coated paper manufacturers are concerned about the effect of postconsumer waste and deinked fiber on the quality of high-quality coated papers. For one thing, with blade coating, contaminants get stuck under the blade and scratch the paper, making marks and weak spots that may cause breakage on web presses. For another, there is no way to guarantee freedom from mechanical fiber and lignin because different types of paper sometimes get mixed together in postconsumer waste. As a result, the paper yellows; on heat-set web presses, blisters may form in the paper. There are a number of lesser concerns involving brightness, strength, smoothness, picking problems, lower run speeds, and the need to base the percent of recycled content on the fiber weight rather than the weight of the total paper including coating. Up to 30% of the total weight of a paper can be coating.
  The study is available from EPA. Call the Procurement Guidelines hotline at 703/941-4452 and ask for Coated Printing Paper Research.
  The companies surveyed are listed in appendices. The companies that make alkaline freesheet recycled coated paper include P.H. Glatfelter, Mohawk, Stora Papyrus, and Potlatch.

Permanent Paper Makes the Scene in Australia

Conservators, librarians and archivists have campaigned long and vigorously for permanent paper in Australia, finally with success. Twenty-seven papers that meet the country's SAA Interim Standard of Permanence are now made domestically. They include three book papers, two offset papers, ten bonds, one check paper, one copy paper (Reflex Archival, promoted on the basis of its permanence), two cartridge papers, and eight boards.

Riverside Catalog Offers Alkaline Art & Office Papers

A long-standing obstacle to the use of alkaline office papers (writing pads, index cards, computer paper) is the fact that most of them are sold not under the manufacturer's name but the name of the distributor or the retail merchant for whom they are made. Even if the distributor or merchant advertises a paper's virtues, high pH is never mentioned as a virtue, because the seller wants the freedom to switch to another supplier in case of a shortage or price fluctuation, and the next supplier might not be able to make alkaline paper. in fact, the seller or whoever contracted with the mill to make the paper gave the mill a number of specifications, which might have included pH, but would not usually tell the retail customer what those specs were. The end result is that office papers are essentially anonymous except for the buyer who gives specs and invites bids.

An exception is Riverside Paper Company (PO Box 179, Appleton, WI 54912-0179, 414/749-2200), which has a catalog of its papers, all of which are alkaline. That's the good news. The bad news is twofold: the catalog also includes papers from other (acid) mills and does not distinguish them; and the minimum order is rather large. So you have to ask to speak to Brenda (749-2313), who knows which are Riverside products, and you have to be looking for 25 or more cases (250 or more reams). Or you can go to the local distributor that carries Riverside products, where you may not have such a high minimum order.

The numerous Riverside products in the catalog were identified recently by Brenda. They include the Ecology line (copier, bond/offset, offset, envelopes, legal pads, memo pads, weekly schedule pads, index cards), the Captain line (bond/offset, hi-bulk offset, xerographic, mimeo, duplicator), the Tru-Rite line (ruled paper, theme pads, filler paper, filler tablet, manuscript tablet, drawing paper, quad ruled drawing paper, legal pads, notebooks, but not the newsprint), and the President series (legal pads, quad ruled pads)-

ISO Drops one Accelerated Aging Standard

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committee on accelerated aging for paper met in November and decided to drop one of its four standards for accelerated aging, ISO 5630/2, which specifies moist aging at 9OLC and 25% RH. At that high a temperature, the committee reasoned, there might be reactions going on that would be unrelated to natural aging, in impurities (e.g., resins) and additives, if not in the fiber itself. It reapproved the other moist aging standard, ISO 5630/3, which calls for 80-OC and 65% RH. The aging period has to be twice as long to get comparable results with this standard. The committee loosened up on the limits within which the RH must be controlled. Variation can now be 2% rather than 1%. A note will be added about filtering the air in the oven to eliminate the effect of pollution.

New Anti-Counterfeiting Measures in Paper Currency

Copiers and scanners have gotten so good that counterfeiters have been passing copies of currency. The Treasury Department and Bureau of Engraving and Printing struck back this summer with the introduction of two new anticopying features that are almost invisible to the naked eye, and too small to be copied accurately. One is a polyester thread on which the letters USA and the denomination (e.g., USA 100) are printed in an alternating up-and-down pattern. You can see it when you hold it up to the light, in the clear area between the border and the Federal Reserve seal, but it cannot be reproduced by reflected light.

The other feature can only be read with a magnifier. It consists of the words "The United States of America" printed repeatedly in letters no taller than 0.007", running around the portrait. Neither feature appears in the $1.00 bill, since it is seldom counterfeited.

(From the October Graphic Arts Monthly)