Wood-based fresh fibre is a clean and safe natural material for tissue paper production and it is traceable from the tree stump to the end product.
As a valuable raw material, fresh fibre from Finnish, sustainably grown forests is always fully utilised for products of the highest possible value.
“Trees are cut into different parts in the forest, and each grade of wood has its own destination that generates the highest added value,” says Vesa Junnikkala, Sustainability Director for Metsä Group’s Wood Supply and Forest Services.
The solid base of large trees, that is, log wood, is the most valuable part of the tree, and our goal is always to maximise the share of log wood in the forest, as it provides raw material for wood products that sequester carbon for long periods of time.
“Moving up along the tree trunk, we get to the pulpwood part, which is used for pulp production,” Junnikkala explains.
In addition, pulp is obtained from thinning wood and from logs that are too thin or of inadequate quality to be used as log wood. Pulp, in turn, is used to produce various products that enhance our daily lives and replace fossil material.
Some of the most popular Nordic tissue paper brands are Serla, Lambi, and Katrin designed for professional use, which offer purity and comfort to millions of Finns and Scandinavians – in daily life as well as on more festive occasions.
These products are made of wood fibre at the traditional, well-established tissue paper mill in Mänttä. Metsä Tissue also has mills in Sweden, Germany, Poland and Slovakia.
“Our mills can sustainably produce up to 1,000 rolls of tissue paper from a single medium-sized thinned out tree,” says Toni Rikkonen, Brand Director for Metsä Tissue’s Katrin product family.
“The origin of the wood we purchase can always be traced, and we know that all the wood fibre we use comes from sustainably managed forests,” he adds.
Our mills can sustainably produce up to 1,000 rolls of tissue paper from a single medium-sized thinned out tree.
Toni Riikonen, Metsä Tissue
Wood-fibre, or pulp, accounts for some 99 per cent of the dry weight of tissue paper.
“The pulp used by Metsä Tissue is a clean and safe natural material that does not carry any risk of impurities,” explains Eija Saski, Product Safety and Sustainability Manager at Metsä Tissue.
High-quality fresh fibre is an excellent raw material for products which prioritise purity and safety.
“These include products that come into contact with food, as well as products that call for extremely high hygiene, such as surgical drapes,” Saski says.
Paper hand towels made of fresh fibre are also the number one option for places with a risk for the spread of disease.
“If you use hygienic, high-quality paper hand towels to dry your hands, any bacteria and viruses are disposed of with the paper instead of spreading through the air and surfaces in the washroom,” Saski explains.
If you use hygienic, high-quality paper hand towels to dry your hands, any bacteria and viruses are disposed of with the paper instead of spreading through the air and surfaces in the washroom.
Eija Saski, Metsä Tissue
Nordic, slow-growing wood is the ideal raw material for soft, clean, durable and absorbent – as well as ecological – tissue paper.
“Tissue paper made of fresh fibre has high absorbency. You use less of it because it absorbs up to ten times its own weight of liquid, which translates to a smaller environmental load,” says Rikkonen.
According to the carbon footprint estimate prepared at Metsä Tissue’s mill in Mänttä, the carbon footprint of tissue paper products made of fresh fibre is smaller than that of products made of recycled fibre. This is due to the large volumes of water and electricity required for the deinking of recycled paper.
Environmental issues are at the heart of Metsä Tissue and the entire Metsä Group’s operations.
“Metsä Group aims for its mills to be fossil free by 2030, and at the same time it is developing its logistics chain to be increasingly efficient,” says Markus Reivala, Vice President, Global Offering, at Metsä Tissue.
Metsä Tissue’s goal for the future is that its tissue paper products are produced as close as possible to where they are consumed.
“As a rule of thumb, tissue papers will not be transported more than 500 kilometres from their production locality. This allows us to maximise our transport volumes while minimising the number of kilometres, which saves both costs and the environment,” adds Reivala.
