Wood-pulping can also be a filthy technology. Growing up in a paper-mill town meant smelling and breathing the particulate and gaseous effluents of the cooking process. In the spring, the remnants of this deluge covered all the melting snow-piles in a black sheet. (And lungs?) Much of what didn't come out of the stacks flowed out under the river's surface through a secret pipe. Downstream, the shores were matted and bubbling with discarded wastes.

As for the hundreds of men who 'harvested' the trees ... laboring in the gulag wilderness, far from the cities where the paper for fiduciary reports, magazines, academic wisdom and signage is consumed ... most lived marginalized lives of quiet desperation. Even if they managed to make it to retirement with whole bodies.

You are correct.

I infrequently do some light googling to see if anyone is seriously trying to use bamboo or hemp for paper and fabrics. This was the biggest hit last time.

http://www.bamboopulp.com

For future, I'll be mindful of the labor and ecological impacts of their processes.

Thank you.

I recently learned that many of the things we make out of plastic today were once made of paper.

I don't mean bags and plates and stuff. I mean big things like tables, and reusable bowls, and snuff boxes. A lot of them can still be found in antique shops 150 years later.