With the exception of a slight hiccup during the height of the recent
environmental movement (during the early 1990s), when for a year or two
consumers were prepared to pay a price premium for lower quality
recycled paper than for the virgin product, the inexorable improvement
in the quality demanded of paper products continues. This demand for
quality covers not only the aesthetics ofthe product but also its
performance. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly the case that papers
designed for a particular use must, as it were incidentally, also
perform well in alternative applications. An example is that of office
and printing papers, which are expected to perform as well in copier
machines as in all the various forms of impact and non-impact printers.
But even greater demands are made in other product areas, where board
designed for dry foods can also be expected to protect moist and fatty
materials and be made of 100% recycled fibre. The need to isolate
foodstuffs from some of the contaminants that can affect recycled board
is a- serious challenge. Thus, papermakers are constantly striving to
meet a broadening spectrum of demands on their products; often while
accepting declining quality of raw materials. The product design
philosophy that has arisen in response to this is increasingly to
isolate the bulk of a paper from its uses: to engineer the needed
performance characteristics into the paper surfaces while more or less
ignoring what happens inside.
