Eradicating the Ink

As cost-sensitive newspaper publishers have observed for years, there is only one truly basic difference between fresh and used paper: ink. Largely because of ink's stubborn presence, U.S. newspapers, which pay a near-prohibitive $134 a ton for fresh newsprint, get less than $20 a ton for used newsprint, which is repulped and pressed into a coarse grey cardboard of the sort used to stiffen the backs of scratch pads and freshly laundered shirts. If there were an economic and efficient way of removing the ink, waste paper could be used over and over again. Last week in Chicago, Marshall Field's Sun-Times and Daily News were both running on newsprint reconstituted from waste.

The Field process, developed over the last six years at the paper mill he now owns in Manistique, Mich., is much the same as dozens of paper reclamation techniques tried in the past. Most of these begin by grinding used (inked) newsprint, mixing it with fresh wood pulp, and removing the ink by subjecting the batch to a strong chemical bath. But used newsprint is low in wood fiber, the tiny tangled threads that make paper strong.

The fibers tend to dissolve in the chemical bath, producing a paper with inferior tensile strength and poor printing qualities; the paper breaks on rotary presses, costs more in time than it saves in price.

To get around this problem, the Field mill starts with used slick, magazine-type paper, which is not only cheaper than used newsprint in the Chicago area but has a 30% fiber content compared with newsprint's 15%-20% and holds up better in the chemical dissolution process.

The result is a grade of reconstituted newsprint that is not only stronger than fresh newsprint but saves Field $20 to $30 a ton.

The success of the reclamation technique is such that Field is considering building a new $10 million reprocessing plant in the Chicago area to double the Manistique mill's annual production of 36,000 tons--less than one-fourth of the newsprint needs of the Field papers in Chicago. And queries about the process are coming in from newspapers around the world. To some of them, the Field technique might make the difference between profit and loss.

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