76 Paper Mills on the Fox River Simon Hoffman The Fox River in Illinois is a crucial provider of water for many industries along the river that require it for production. One of the many industries that use this water source is the paper industry. Paper mills along the river have been around for centuries, and while they are useful and provide for the economy in the valley, they can also be dangerous. The waste produced by the paper industry and the industries related to it have caused significant negative effects on the water quality of the Fox River as well as the environment surrounding it. The paper industry is a massive one and it has been around for centuries. Ever since the invention of writing there has always been a need for paper. This need has only grown throughout the years, and now with so many of our society’s institutions being so paper dependent, the need now is higher than ever. This has led to needing a strong and widespread paper producing industry, one that has grown in the US for a long time. The process to create paper starts with harvesting trees and turning them into small wood chips. The chips are then processed to create a pulp with the fibers from the wood. The manner that the wood is processed is very water dependent and requires a good number of different chemicals to produce the pulp to be the right consistency. After the pulp mixture is created, the pulp is poured into a thin sheet and compressed and dried. The entire procedure creates a lot of wastewater and since the primary material used in the process is wood fibers, the creation can be costly for the environment.1 Throughout the centuries that paper has been made though, the methods to create it, and the amount of paper created, have changed drastically. There had been minor improvements and innovations that aided in the paper creation 1 Greta James and World Paper Mill, “How Does Paper Mill Work? A Short Beginners Guide,” World Paper Mill, February 22, 2019, https://worldpapermill.com/how-paper-mill-work/.
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