Combating environmental degradation through resource recovery of ‘wasted resource’ – a micro level study

A paperless society is a dream come true. Paper – an essential resource but a paradoxical material -is not considered environment friendly and increase in use has contributed to global deforestation, contamination of water, soil and air. All activity economic or human can come to a halt if this resource become absent in the world. World consumption of paper has gone up 400 per cent in the last forty years for which nearly four billion trees or 35 per cent of the total trees cut around the world have been used by paper industries in all the continents. The most efficient way to conserve any resource is to recover the ‘resources out of waste’. Paper recycling refers to converting waste paper back into usable paper products. India being an agrarian economy, agro wastes (wasted resources) also mount high and contribute their mite to spoil the environment. An attempt was made through a micro level study to utilize both these wasted resources to produce paper – a ‘recovered resource’, which will benefit both the society and environment. Value addition of such ‘recovered resource’ was also tried. This article delineates the procedure adopted and salient findings of the study.