Q1.
Observe the different stages of the process shown in Fig. 14.1 on page 206 and discuss them with your fellow classmates.
Answer
Fig. 14.1 follows your own textbook backwards to the tree it came from. Read the eight pictures in order and you have the whole journey — “the transformation of pulp (wooden fibre of a tree) into paper and, after printing, into textbooks” (page 206).
| Stage | What the picture shows | What is happening |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A worker felling a tree with a power saw | Timber is taken from the forest — the raw material of paper |
| 2 | A machine lifting and stacking cut logs | The logs are gathered and piled at the collection yard |
| 3 | A loader placing logs on a waiting truck | The timber is loaded for its journey out of the forest |
| 4 | A long truck carrying logs down a highway | The logs travel to the paper mill, perhaps hundreds of kilometres away |
| 5 | A huge machine rolling out a sheet of white paper | In the mill, wood is turned into pulp and the pulp into paper on giant rollers |
| 6 | A forklift carrying cartons into a printing press | Reams of paper are delivered and stacked at the press |
| 7 | A printing machine running coloured sheets | The pages of the book are printed, folded, bound and given a cover |
| 8 | A family buying books at a shop counter | The finished textbook is sold and reaches the student |
Points worth discussing with your classmates:
- Count the hands. A logger, a machine operator, a driver, mill workers, a forklift driver, printers, binders, a shopkeeper — at least eight different people worked on the book in your bag, and not one of them ever met you.
- Notice how often the material simply moves. Four of the eight pictures are transport or handling. Nothing is made in them, yet without them nothing would arrive.
- Notice where the value grows. A log is worth little; paper is worth more; a printed and bound textbook is worth much more still. Each stage of work adds value.
- Trees are a renewable resource — but only if replanted. The DON’T MISS OUT box on the same page adds the reason: recycling one tonne of paper saves 17 trees and 2.5 cubic metres of landfill space, and uses 70 per cent less energy and water than making new paper from wood pulp.
- Ask what could break. A strike at the mill, a landslide on the highway, or a power failure at the press — any one of them and the book is not printed in time.
The point the chapter draws from this figure (page 207): “None of the activities that were part of the process – from extracting pulp from the trees to making paper and finally producing the books would have been possible, had it not been for all three sectors working together.”