CELLULOSE FIBERS OBTAINED FROM ANNUAL PLANTS FOR SHOPPING BAGS

Durable paper is essential for the production of durable paper bags. Although there is sufficient wood available in Europe, the technology for obtaining cellulose fibers from annual plants is also of great interest to inventors and manufacturers of cellulose fibers. The advantages of annual plants are easier delignification, lower water consumption and the use of agricultural by-products that would otherwise have to be disposed of in other ways. The main disadvantage of obtaining cellulose fibers from annual plants is that the plants are only available at certain times of the year, which requires large storage capacities. We compared three types of paper produced in Europe that are used to make paper bags. The first paper sample contained only primary wood cellulose fibers, the second sample contained fibers from grass, wood and secondary fibers and the third sample contained cellulose fibers from fallen leaves and secondary cellulose. By comparing the physical and mechanical properties (tear strength, burst strength, tensile strength, sound propagation speed), we wanted to determine whether paper made from tested annual plant fibers could replace paper made from wood cellulose in the production of paper bags. We assumed that paper made from wood cellulose would be more resistant than others because the wood fibers are longer and therefore improve the physical-mechanical strength of the paper. We were able to confirm this hypothesis, as the paper with primary wood pulp performed better in all measurements except for tear strength, where the grass and wood fiber paper performed better. The paper containing no wood cellulose fibers performed the worst of all three papers tested. Even though the production of paper from tested/investigated annual plant fibers is a welcome innovation, it unfortunately cannot yet replace wood cellulose paper.