If a mill buys pulp to make their chlorine free paper, is it the bleaching system of the manufacturer or of the pulp supplier that has to be completely chlorine free?
“Chlorine free” is a description of the process used to make the paper. Therefore, the pulp supplier definitely must use completely chlorine free bleaching processes. If the manufacturer bleaches the pulp in its papermaking process, then it, too, must be chlorine free. However, some mills buy chlorine free pulp and make paper without additional bleaching in their own facility. If the pulp is not contaminated with pulp in the mill that was bleached with chlorine or chlorine compounds, then it still can produce chlorine free paper. In addition, a few recycled printing and office papers are made without any bleaching at all. The scrap paper is simply dumped into a pulping vat without either deinking or bleaching. This paper almost always is speckled from the ink particles that were not removed (considered a desirable graphic effect for many letterheads and brochures), and would also be considered to be unbleached, or processed chlorine free. (However, not all speckled papers are made in t
