From the wheat field to the printing presses, from pollutant to recycled material. That's what manufacturers of agrifiber-pulp-based newsprint hope will happen after eight papers on the West Coast complete test runs using newsprint containing the wood-pulp alternative.
The Portland Oregonian, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and at least six other papers have scheduled test press runs using the alternative newsprint.
Agrifiber pulp comes from wheat, rice and rye grass. Farmers usually burn much of it, except for wheat, after the harvesting season. For the first test, Arbokem Inc., Vancouver, solicited donations from area farmers to produce the pulp, which they sent to Jefferson Smurfit Corp. in Oregon to create the newsprint, says Christine Wong, who co-owns Arbokem.
"Straw is less expensive, and it's also available," Wong says. She adds that using straw also helps eliminate the health hazard of farmers burning the straw.
While Wong estimates the cost of agrifiber pulp to be about $40 a ton compared to $100 a ton for wood pulp, Jim Altemus, director of corporate marketing for Jefferson Smurfit, cautions that the hard price cannot be determined yet.
The Portland Oregonian did its test run Oct. 26. The Mercury News printed eight pages of its Sunday section Nov. 7 using the paper in a press run of 360,000 copies.
"We're looking at how it compares to traditional newsprint--strength, appearance...runability," said Sue Dorchak, quality-assurance manager at the Mercury News, before the test. Dorchak saw only a tiny difference between the wood- and the agrifiber-based products when held up to light. Before the test run, a small test was done to see how the paper would take ink; it passed, Dorchak said.
In producing the newsprint, Altemus says Jefferson Smurfit created a recipe using recycled newspaper, varying amounts of rice and rye grass, and wood chips. Because of the small amount of agrifiber pulp it received, it could only do an eight-hour run to test the brightness and strength of the paper, he says.
"We are very enthused and optimistic about it," he says, "but we need to do more testing in an organized way."
Briggs is a free-lance writer based in Philadelphia. Phone, (215) 854-2338; fax, (215) 854-5553.
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