Non-wood fibers have a long history as a raw material for papermaking. Hemp, ramie, cotton and rag fibers have been used for almost 2,000 years and wood only started to replace them when paper usage began accelerating about 200 years ago and textile fibers out-priced themselves. Paper was first made in China in as early as 105 AD. It was produced from old rags, fishing nets, mulberry bark and grass. For the following 1700 years paper was made exclusively from non wood fiber. It was in 1857 that the process for pulping wood fibers and forming them into a paper web was invented. Wood was quickly established as the primary source of fiber for papermaking, and today provides some 90% of the fibrous raw material used in the process.

In 1970, the total worldwide capacity for production of non-wood plant fiber papermaking pulp was only 76,22,000 metric tones out of a total papermaking pulp capacity amounting to 11,35,32,000 metric tones. This amount represented only 6.7% of the total. However, since that time, there has been a dramatic increase in non-wood plant fiber pulping capacity. In 1993, total papermaking pulp capacity based on utilizing non-wood plant fibers amounted to 2,07,36,000 metric tones, or 10.6 per cent of the total. By 1998, it is projected that non-wood papermaking pulp capacity will reach 2,33,71,000 metric tones, or 11.2 per cent of the total. During the period from 1988-93, non-wood papermaking pulp capacity gained an average of 6% annually, or three times as fast as papermaking wood pulp capacity at 2% annually.

China currently produces half of the world's non-wood pulp, while Europe, Latin America and North America are still relatively small players. Nonwood sources for pulping are rags, bagasse, hemp, esparto grass, rye grass, ramie, bamboo, flax, wheat straw, kenaf, reed, rice straw and cotton linters. There is a lot of potential to upgrade what is presently considered state-of-art technology in straw pulping. It is now known that the raw material must be as clean and uniform as possible and the residue should be used to generate energy. For medium and linerboard production, an alkaline process, sodium hydroxide possibly with oxygen to improve yield, seems feasible. A mixture of recycled fiber and straw will most certainly be the main raw material for all corrugated medium production in future. For high quality linerboard up to 25% straw pulp, has proved to be acceptable.

Bleached nonwood fibers are an excellent raw material for printing papers, providing up to 50% of the fiber furnish, and can also be used for tissue and board production. Since wheat straw or similar crops do not have an ideal fiber composition compared to wood fibers for papermaking, these fibers are still regarded as filler pulp. Other annual fibers are superior for yielding differing qualities. In Central Europe, elephant grass has a high yield when planted on agricultural land, and elephant grass and popular plantations are being seen as a future raw material for pulp & paper production. Professor Rudolf Patt at the University of Hamburg has clearly shown that elephant grass is the best nonwood raw material known today for papermaking fiber. Its pulping response is found to be excellent and its papermaking properties match those of fast-growing hybrid aspen.

Researchers have proved that any grade of paper, paperboard or reconstituted panel board can be produced by properly selecting the appropriate mixture of non-wood plant fibers and the appropriate pulping processes. If circumstances demand, all grades can be produced without any addition of wood pulp. In fact, some grades are already being produced with 100% non-wood plant fibers. On a global basis, the future use of renewable non-wood plant fibers for production of papermaking is a reality indeed. With more than 90 million metric tones of cereal straw being available, more than 4 million tones of bagasse, 1 million tones of seed grass straw, 28 million tonne of grain sorghum stalks, and the exciting potential for kenaf, certainly these raw materials should be considered, at least as supplementary raw materials for paper-making pulp, especially in such areas where the cost of wood has seen a rather steep escalation.

By a wide margin, the leading non-wood plant fiber presently in use is straw, followed by bagasse and bamboo. During 1993, total capacity of producing straw pulp worldwide was 9.566 million tones, with China having a share 88 per cent, followed by India with 3 per cent share. In the same year, worldwide bagasse pulping capacity was 2.984 million tones. China was again leading the table with 18.9% share, followed by Indian share of 12.16%. The worldwide bamboo pulping capacity in 1993 were 1.483 million tones, India being the leading country with 44.76% share, pushing China to second place with 27.74% share. However, both China and Thailand are increasing their bamboo pulp production at a rapid rate. Perhaps the greatest relative untapped bamboo forests are in Myanmar, but presently only 20,000 tonnes of bamboo pulp are being made there annually. Therefore, the potential for long fiber pulp production in Myanmar is very great. Since the country is opening to foreign investment, we may see some major activities there in the future. The largest capacity for producing pulp from miscellaneous non-wood plant fibers is also concentrated in China with more than 85% of total world capacity.

Major World Producers of Non-wood Pulp

Although, India was not the first to use bagasse as a source of paper-making raw materials, the Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL) is held up as an example to the world, as to what can be achieved using 80-100 % annual fibers to make commercial grades of paper. Earlier last year, TNPL succeeded in making 100% bagasse-based newsprint. The most common non-wood fiber used in papermaking is straw accounting for some 47% of total production in 1993. Next largest source was bagasse at 12% and bamboo at 6%.