This four-article series on the life cycle of a folding carton details the carton process from the birth of a tree to the pulp mill to the carton converter. It then continues to describe what happens in the repulping of used cartons and in landfills. It includes the various segments of carton life in which the carton actually changes shape. Future issues of BCI will detail the retail and consumer segments of a carton's existence, a subject large enough to be the focus of its own series.

With the following information, BCI hopes to arm you with knowledge that goes beyond your operations; knowledge you can share with your customers. We also hope to instill in you a new confidence-that your industry is moving forward and discovering new and better ways of doing things, from the beginning through the end, and then back to the beginning again.

People plant seeds for a variety of reasons. Some plant floral gardens for the simple reward of colorful, sweet-smelling bouquets. There are others who grow vegetables so they can harvest their own fresh produce. And still others who do both for the pure satisfaction of digging their fingers into the dirt and nurturing a seedling to its maturity. Most people acknowledge those types of harvests as environmentally harmless hobbies, and most also recognize agriculture-as an industry-as being a natural, integral part of the global economy. However, a common belief amongst environmentalists is that paper companies-which are essentially "farmers" of tree gardens-virtually rob the soil to make money, taking advantage of the forests that nature has provided.

I recently visited The Mead Corp.'s woodlands near the company's Coated Board Division headquarters in Phenix City, Alabama. After spending many hours with the forestry experts responsible for growing and harvesting the company's trees, of which most are ultimately used to create coated paperboard, I learned that the people at Mead who disk the soil, plant the seed and foster the growth of the trees they will eventually harvest, probably love the land more than anyone. Not only do they relish actually digging their fingers into the soil, but their livelihoods depend on fruitful harvests of lumber and pulp timber. And any of us consumers who use paper products-which includes most of the world-do, too.

from the ground up Since forests cover most of the land in the South, forestry is the No. 1 industry in both Alabama and Georgia. "Mead Coated Board owns and leases about 540,000 acres of woodlands, from which we supply about 30% of our own requirements," said Ermine Venuto, vice president of Woodlands/Wood Products for the Coated Board Division. The company also purchases timber from other sources, including private landowners and open market suppliers.

In addition to making money off of forests, as a member of the American Forest & Paper Association's (AF&PA) Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Mead has pledged itself to making certain that U.S. forests remain healthy and productive. And in pledging membership, the company has committed itself to "meeting the forestry needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." This obligation requires Mead to practice a stewardship of growing and nurturing trees while simultaneously conserving the soil, air and water quality, wildlife and fish habitats and aesthetics.

And to help condense the number of acres harvested to meet the global demand for paper, "We do a lot of things to try and increase the productivity of our forests," said Venuto. "I came to Mead in 1987, and back then we were on about a 27-year rotation. Today, we're growing trees in as few as 18 or 19 years. We've changed the way we do things-cultural things like keeping the trees free to grow and dedicating our acres to intensive forestry."

According to Venuto, Mead has learned the real value of its business. "The soil is the resource, not the trees. If you have good soil, you are going to perpetuate the growing of trees much easier."

harvesting healthy wood Mead's computerized geographic information system shows all of the company's land. When it comes time to harvest a specific tract of land, Donald Wood, the company's wildlife biologist, enters the picture. "When it's time to harvest, the area forester, area technician and I look at where we're going to be harvesting to determine how that area fits into the overall forest and landscape," explained Wood. "At that time, we'll make additions or subtractions to the harvest area to try to improve its natural wildlife habitat." With an electronic map, Wood can determine where the stand (or community of trees) lines are, when it was planted and what its stocking level is, as well as familiarize himself with what wildlife exists in that stand. Wood is also concerned with evaluating the land for aesthetics, because visual management also plays a key role in SFI.

How do they determine when a tree stand is ripe? "Our average rotation length is about 22 years. By the time a stand reaches that age it will be ready for harvest," said Wood. "Its growth has reached maximum and the annual growth rate increases will start to decline."

The voluntary SFI directs members to limit their clear-cut acreage to an average of less than 120 acres per year. "Last year our average clear-cut size was 47 acres," said Terry Bussey, assistant procurement manager for Mead. "And we're continually trying to get that number down. That isn't to say we won't ever have a 100- or 150-acre harvest, but we are trying to minimize our average."

The SFI also prohibits clear-cutting land adjacent to another recent clear-cut. "If we cut this area here," Bussey said as he motioned toward an area with young tree growth, "we can't harvest an adjacent stand until those trees are at least three years old or five feet tall."

Another silvicultural activity, or harvesting technique, that Mead uses is thinning, or taking only selected rows of a stand. "One of the reasons is to get a little bit of early income from the stand, but another is to anticipate natural tree mortality," said Wood. If a lot of trees in one portion of a stand are bigger than others, smaller trees that don't reach up into the canopy will eventually die completely.

So foresters and biologists are actually protecting the forests as well as gardening it. And without their proper care, entire tracts of land could die from disease and insect infestation, as well as the non-tree ecological systems surrounding those forests.

planting a wooden garden The words "litter", "rubbish", "debris" and "fire" generally conjure images of trash-ridden highways and fierce flames jumping from treetop to treetop. However, in forestry the words are all related to sustaining proper timber growth.

Bussey waved a hand toward an area that looked relatively bare, but was scattered with tree limbs and branches. "To you, that might look pretty bad, but to us it's actually good," he explained. "When we leave material on-site, some of that material holds down soil erosion. If you burn it, you create a slope causing some soil to end up in the creek." Without a clear understanding of the efforts Mead takes to help wildlife and put nutrients back into the ground, tree debris gets a messy reputation.

Like the rest of industry, the forestry field is continually learning new ways to be more gentle to the environment. Sometimes it learns from new technology, other times it learns from mistakes previously made. We used to pile up all of that debris and burn it," said Wood. "Now we do things differently and make changes to conserve the wildlife habitat." Different wildlife species need that debris as a nutrient base and as refuge.

"One of the objectives of the SFI is to make sure we have a fully stocked stand within two years after we cut it down, if we are going to replant it artificially," said Bussey. "We plant between 700 and 800 seedlings per acre, and we get 90% to 95% survival." If the company is regenerating a stand of trees naturally, which involves the sprouting of trees already on-site or natural seeding, the company is allowed five years to stock its stand.

"The next step is to site-prepare the land as quickly as possible and turn it back into forest as quickly as we can," said Wood. Site preparation often includes disking the land or blade plowing, which involves tilling into the ground about 24 in., much like a subsoiler. "With blade plowing, we are only affecting a three-foot bed of soil. Then we move over 12 feet and run another parallel bed. We're trying to affect only that micro-site where the trees are going to grow to minimize soil erosion," said Wood.

In addition to mechanical site preparation, foresters practice chemical preparation. "We use herbicides to prepare some of our land," said Wood. Herbicides are chosen based on the type of vegetation that they remove and on the kind of plants that they'll leave. "There are certain herbicides that tend to leave more favorable wildlife plants than others, and we use them when we can to control the vegetation," he said.

At times, Mead will also prescribe the burning of specific areas to release the nutrients tied up in the tree litter. "Fire will turn that litter into primary nutrients, which provide a flush of new growth-primarily herbaceous growth-that is preferable to a lot of wildlife species." It also reopens crowded, overgrown areas.

The company goes above and beyond adherence when it comes to SFI guidelines on streamside management zones (SMZ), which require foresters to leave 35 feet on either side of a stream to be untouched. Mead often leaves up to 80 feet. And when the company has to cross a stream with its trucks, it even prevents muddying the water by inserting permanent rock-filled geoweb (a honeycomb-like piece of rubber) into the ground. It will also build an occasional bridge when necessary. "But the best kind of stream crossing is no stream crossing," said Wood, and sometimes the foresters access their land from other landowners' properties just to avoid doing so.

sowing seeds of knowledge Mead is devoted to educating people on the characteristics and advantages of proper forestry management and of paper products. "We educate a lot of our customers through what we call our Paperboard Knowledge(R) Seminar," said Venuto. "And the course is not just about our paper-we talk about the whole process of making paper and the different types of substrates. We discuss their applications, where they come from and their different advantages in terms of strength and printability."

The company also educates other landowners and helps them administer proper forestry practices on their own lands, through a forest management assistance program. "We have a lot of expertise," said Venuto. "We'll write landowners a complete management plan based on what they need and want. If they want to provide for deer hunting or for watching migratory songbirds, we'll incorporate those aspects into their plan."

Going beyond its customers and educating the public about the renewability of its raw materials is also extremely important to Mead, for the hurdles in that arena are even higher. "You clear-cut an area for forestry and people frown, but you clear-cut an area for a shopping center and they call it progress," said Bussey. "Our biggest hurdle is creating an understanding in urban areas-the people who own forest land already understand." People from cities see a clear-cut and wonder what happened. "When a local landowner drives by he says, 'Well they just cut this, but they cut it 20 years ago and they replanted it. And they're going to cut it in another 20 years.' We have to educate those people who don't have a close tie to the land," Bussey added.

"Plastic is a finite resource," Venuto said. "We are a renewable resource-based industry. We can replant trees-you can't replant oil." According to the AF&PA, the United States has more trees today than it did 70 years ago. However, many environmentalists argue that forest products companies are replanting the wrong kind of trees. Wood strongly disagrees. "Critics say we should be using other things besides loblolly pine. But loblolly is native, and it grows very well," he explained. "The world's demand for paper is not going to decrease-it increases every year. And we can either manage very intensively on fewer acres, which is what most forest products companies are doing, or we can back off on our intensity of management." But that means having to harvest a lot more acres.

embracing an industry To reduce the harvest of trees, an argument can always be made that consumers should use recycled paper products. And luckily, many of us do. However, research shows that recycled fibres last for only so long, therefore, there will always be a need for virgin fibre. So if the harvesting of trees is inevitable-we might as well make sure it is being done right.

With the help of forestry experts at companies such as Mead, who have learned better, faster, more efficient ways to grow loblolly pines, and who have taught me some of the truths behind the myths, consumers can more fully enjoy timber and forestry by-products that make us happy, such as trees and flowers or wooden bookshelves. And paper, which makes paperboard converters money, makes me-as a writer-very happy.

The people at Mead would probably want nothing more than for consumers to go ahead and hug the trees. And be thankful that the people who are charged with the task of preserving, growing and harvesting our forests have taken a stand-to truly embrace trees for the betterment of the woodlands, their adjacent ecosystems and the nature that surrounds us all.

Artificial Regeneration: Renewal of a clear-cut forest or replacement of open land by either planting trees by hand or machine, or by direct seeding.

Best Management Practices: The use of accepted silvicultural operations that conserve the integrity of forest land and its associated components in such a manner that site and water quality is protected.

Clear-cut: Any harvest in which all merchantable stems from a tract are cut. After a clear-cut is conducted, provisions should be made to regenerate the tract.

Direct Seeding: A method of artificial regeneration of a forest where seed of the desirable species is sown in the area to be regenerated.

Forestry: A profession embracing the science, business and art of creating, conserving, and managing forest and forestland for the continuing use of their resources, materials and other forest products.

Harvest: Removal of merchantable trees either through thinning or clear-cutting.

Natural Regeneration: Renewal of the forest or conversion of non-forested land to forest achieved either by natural seeding or from the sprouting of trees on the site.

Silviculture: The theory and practice of controlling the establishment, composition, constitution and growth of forests.

Stand: A tree community that possesses sufficient uniformity in composition, age, spatial arrangement or condition to be distinguishable from other communities.

Streamside Management Zone (SMZ): Land area adjacent to perennial or seasonal streams, lakes or ponds. SMZs serve to enhance wildlife, water quality and aesthetics as well as maintain the integrity of stream banks.

Thinning: Intermediate harvests made in order to stimulate the growth of trees that remain and to increase the total yield of useful material.