Features Environment & Sustainability Paper
Resolute expands its eco-conscious Align paper grades

Resolute Forest Products continues to expand its Align™ brand of environmentally responsible and budget-friendly papers by adding two more superbrite grades, Hybrid and Alternative, to the company’s existing offerings. The Align grades…

Resolute Forest Products continues to expand its Align™ brand of environmentally responsible and budget-friendly papers by adding two more superbrite grades, Hybrid and Alternative, to the company’s existing offerings. The Align grades use up to 50% less fiber as well as less energy and fewer chemicals, compared to traditional freesheet, says Resolute.

“Customers have even more choice of paper grades that reduce fiber consumption and save money without sacrificing the quality of their printed product.” said John Lafave, senior vice-president, pulp and paper sales and marketing, Resolute.

Specifically, grades that will be added to the Align umbrella are: Hybrid Smooth, Hybrid Vellum, Hybrid Envelope, Alternative Book, Alternative Offset and Alternative Opaque produced at the company’s Calhoun, Tennessee, mill, as well as Alternative Offset and Alternative Book produced at the Alma, Que., mill.

Align’s Hybrid grades are high-yield, opaque offset papers used for commercial printing such as  comics, direct mail, directories, envelopes, inserts and manuals. Align’s Alternative Offset papers are suitable for a variety of print applications, including book publishing, financial printing, annual reports and direct mail.

Resolute’s Calhoun mill made significant advancements in reducing its environmental footprint in 2013, which qualify certain of its products to become part of the Align family. One of the most important changes involved shifting Calhoun’s energy source from coal to natural gas, considerably reducing the mill’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

According to Resolute, Align papers are made with up to 50% less wood fiber compared to freesheet paper, and have an environmental footprint 35% to 85% smaller than the average freesheet grade. In addition, by delivering higher opacity and bulk at a lower basis weight than traditional freesheet, Align may contribute to lower paper, postage and transportation costs.

With the thermo-mechanical pulping process used to produce Resolute’s Align family of papers, 90% of the wood fiber is used, and it also delivers a marked improvement in efficiency over the chemical pulping process employed to make competitive traditional freesheet from kraft pulp, Resolute explains. In the chemical pulping process, lignin is removed, and only about half of the original wood fiber is used, the company says.