Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows how the consumption of paper is increasing. A voice-over narration reveals that the first paper was made 5,000 years ago in Egypt and that since then its uses have increased ‘at a staggering rate’. It shows people buying greeting cards and wrapping paper in a gift shop, and shows footage of newspapers on a printing press, and paper-sellers in Melbourne. The footage is in fast motion and is accompanied by a compelling music score.

Educational value points

• Over the course of the 20th century global paper consumption increased 20-fold and by 2000 about 300 million tonnes of paper was produced worldwide each year. Paper was first made 5,000 years ago in Egypt and was handmade up until the 1800s, which meant that it was a luxury and was used almost exclusively for writing and printing purposes. Once production became industrialised paper became cheaper and more widely available and began to be used to make a variety of products.

• Paper products, as the clip points out, have become an essential part of daily life. Paper is mainly used to store and communicate information through newspapers, magazines, books, writing paper and other documents, but increasingly paper products are used in food packaging and in household products such as tissues, toilet rolls, nappies and paper towels. Advertising in the print media has also increased the demand for paper.

• Paper consumption has been growing despite predictions that the spread of information technology, in particular the widespread use of computers, would lead to the paperless office. However about 95 per cent of business information is still stored on paper, while the greater availability of copying machines, printers and fax machines, as well as personal computers and desktop printers, has produced an increase rather than a decrease in demand for paper.

• The clip is from the documentary Paper Trail, the Life and Times of a Woodchip which examines whether the world’s growing demand for paper can coexist with the protection of its forests. Governments face opposing demands from both the logging industry and environmental movement, and have recently begun to address the impact of logging on global warming. A study by the Australian National University in 2003 found that mature old growth forests in Australia can store up to 1,500 t of carbon per ha.

• Australia is a major supplier of woodchips to the paper manufacturers of Japan, but also exports to Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia, and increasingly to expanding markets in China and India. The operators of vast plantations of cheap, high-quality timber in South America and South-East Asia are now competing with Australian producers to supply these markets. In 2005 woodchips ranked 27th in a list of Australia’s main exports and generated about $800 million in income.

• Over 40 per cent of trees that are logged globally are used to make paper, and environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society and Greenpeace claim that the destruction of natural forests to produce woodchips is occurring at an unsustainable rate. Despite such concerns, the export of Australian woodchips is growing and in 2002 the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecast a 20 per cent rise in export woodchip sales by 2010, sourced mainly from hardwood plantations.

• Australia’s National Association of Forest Industries defends the woodchip industry, claiming that native forests are not logged for the prime purpose of wood chipping. The Association says that trees judged unsuitable to be processed as saw logs are converted to woodchips, as are plantation timbers and off-cuts from saw milling. The forest industry claims that any reduction in woodchipping would result in massive job losses. In 2006–07, the Australian Government continued to renew woodchip export licences.

• Paper consumption is linked to income levels, with affluent countries such as the United States and Australia among the leading consumers of paper. Economic development and expansion in countries such as India and China has brought with it a need for increased communication, causing a rise in paper consumption. Higher standards of living also lead to improved literacy standards, which in turn result in greater paper consumption for communication, books and disposable paper products.

• The increasing demand for woodchips to make paper products could be reduced if more paper was recycled. At present recycled paper accounts for about 10 per cent of the paper market worldwide. Fibres such as hemp could be used as an alternative in paper production. While offices may never be ‘paperless’, paper consumption can be cut by adopting measures such as distributing memos by email, bookmarking web pages instead of printing them out and storing records on CD-ROM.

• Paper Trail, the Life and Times of a Woodchip is an example of a documentary made in the ‘expository’ style, which relies on the spoken word to advance an argument, and uses only images that support this argument. In this clip images of people buying and using paper products is sped up and combined with a compelling music score to convey the impression of a continually escalating consumption of paper.

A time-lapse sequence shows people buying stationery, wrapping paper and cards. A shot of newspapers coming off the print run is followed by street scenes of people buying and reading the newspaper.
Narrator The first paper was some made 5,000 years ago. Its uses have continued to multiply at a staggering rate. We use double the paper we used 25 years ago and in another 25 years we may well be consuming three times the amount we use today. Paper is a material we take for granted. It packages, displays and advertises the objects of everyday life. It communicates intelligence and propaganda, the consumables of the information age.