Paper was first created by the Chinese. Tsai Lun was the one who discovered the bamboo-made paper that was easily available in China in 101 AD. The paper-making technique fell into the hands of the Arabs during the Abbasid period after the defeat of the Tang Dynasty forces in the Battle of the Talas River in 751 AD. The prisoners of war taught the way of making paper to the Arabs, so then the papers industry emerged there.
The existence of paper in human life is quite important, because the paper serves as a scribe of science, media for promotion. trade, means to convey thoughts and ideas, and others. On top of the surface lies the various information to be conveyed, such as writing or drawing.
The paper was originally only written media, read and media information, but as the development of paper functions became widely become other media such as painting media, jewelry media, hygiene media and other media. Never mind that this paper will be a material that is needed by humans.
Paper is one of the human needs in daily activities, so the use of paper every day amounted to very large. Use of such papers such as newspapers, magazines, books, packaging, letters, fax paper, photocopies and printed papers. The enormous amount of paper needs, besides encouraging the production of the paper industry, it also raises other issues such as environmental issues, which include issues of tree felling in forests, garbage, water and air pollution.
Data from the Ministry of Industry show that paper needs in the global arena now range from 394 million tons. This amount is believed to grow 24.4% to 490 million tonnes by 2020. Paper consumption in the world is forecast to grow by an average of 2.1% per year, while emerging markets are up 4.1% annually and developed countries are 0.5%.
Indonesia is one of the world's leading pulp and paper producers. For RI rank pulp to-9, while paper production in order to-6. At the Asian level, Indonesia's third largest pulp and paper production. In the past year, paper production utilization was around 80%. This percentage comes from the production capacity of 13 million tons but the realization of production is only 10.4 million tons.
To meet the paper's needs, millions of trees have been felled. With a forest area of 98 million hectares, the Ministry of Forestry mapped over the period 2010-2015, Indonesia's forest deforestation figure of 1.15 million hectares. Judging from the size of the figures, the deforestation rate is lower than Brazil, which is 4.3 million hectares, but in reality the forest area of Indonesia is smaller than Brazil which has an area of 478 million hectares. To meet the needs of each ton of pulp required 4.6 cubic meters of timber and every hour forest area of 5 times the football field is cut down to produce paper.
Technological advances are expected to reduce the human need for paper. Letters have changed e-mail, actual events can not only be read through the newspaper, but also through news portal sites that offer faster news updates. With the android handphone now man spoiled with online news sites with ease and speed. But still the existence of paper can not be completely removed from everyday life. People still need paper in the form of books, newspapers, print out job reports, college or school needs and various other things.
Human dependence will overshadow human life, human deprivation of paper and technology into a new problem in the digital era, digital technology was created with the aim to reduce paper use, but production and paper business is increasing. Human dependence on paper makes people think of new things in making paper.
Setting the balance between paper can be done by keeping usage and creating renewable energy in the process of making paper and raw materials in paper making, not easy to set the balance, need campaign and socialization to the public.
Various ways can be done in paper saving. Among them is by giving priority to the use of handkerchiefs than tissues. Sniffer is much more efficient for long-term use than with tissues. Not only that, more thorough in print writing also helps in paper saving. Sometimes when typing someone just print it without researching first if the writing is really ready. The impact of the printed paper will be wasted.
In addition to saving paper, saving Indonesia's forests can also be done with routine tree planting and optimization of production forests to supply timber needs. Then the necessary steps to improve the strategy of felling trees, so that the trees are felled completely as needed and not random.
In addition it needs to be initiated and cultivated alternative paper making materials, such as water hyacinth, pineapple leaves, banana stems, cassava leaf, palm oil bunches, and others that are certainly more environmentally friendly. The transformation of raw materials from wood making into daily crops will support the saving of forests while maintaining cultivation of paper and literacy.
Entering the milinial era, the flow of incoming technology is not unstoppable. Digitalization of all communication media makes paper no longer desirable. It was started by a British Charles Babbage (1791-1871) who invented the computer first through a calculator. This discovery triggers other experts to create other digital media to facilitate mankind in terms of technology.
Manual writing habits that are considered ancient, the reason for the findings such as computers and handpone as a medium of communication in the Modern era at that time. In addition to paper written if not maintained and cared for (and certainly gradually) will be destroyed by age. It is undeniable that it turns out that behind the grace it has turned out that paper also has weaknesses. The downside is age.
Human limitations in memory, making the paper lost its good image in the eyes of humans. Forgot to put, have to cross out the wrong writing, changing paper giving birth technology like Microsoft Office and generation below. Furthermore because of the damaging effects of the environment, the use of paper began to become the government's attention. The state began to limit logging in bulk to avoid the effects of environmental damage from being cut down for paper. Features like Microsoft Office are helpful to minimize paper usage. If we first write on paper, then we can now write in different forms and different tools.
In today's global era, the digital world comes in and comes to be the next alternative to meet the needs of the rampant paper-feeding crisis. Through computer technology today. Even in the writing world today, the presence of the world wide web or commonly known as WWW adds a new method in replacing the role of paper as a stationery. Everyone can already write something through the digital pages to tell the current events and become the history of the future.
In addition to the paper used for media expression and communication that has been replaced by the computer, reappeared money substitute (the material on paper) in the form of "digital money". Previously banknotes used in transacting and becoming a medium of exchange, changed its shape in digital form is stored at the Bank. Having lots of paper money began to be considered old-fashioned as a medium of exchange plus an emerging e-commerce term (electronic shopping). Then comes the payment model through a digital transaction called Payment. Payment is a transaction that uses a bank account as a transaction medium. Finally, many people are reluctant to use paper money as a means of payment.
Then as time passes again this time, the digital currency is considered the "future money". The money is called Bitcoin. Bitcoin is considered the highest currency and has the invertation that it makes. I myself also do not know, whether there will be a new type of currency that eventually diminish the hope of paper to become an idol like during his former glory days.
However, though as a form of my love on paper, until now I still keep paper money as a symbol of "inheritance". May our children and grandchildren know that there was a time immemorial, that thing is great and very precious. Until people are willing to die deminya.
May we keep the paper and inherit it to our grandchildren. Like an old Malay poem, let the sun rise in the west, let the sky fall, even when the world is colorless, keep paper as a historical story
The world deal that converts paper into digital is one solution to stop global warming. But the study of the impact of the loss of paper will not be understood in a transparent way. Humans only see the base only. But the tip of the paper should be carefully considered.
For me, the use of paper should be limited and even pressed to a balanced extent. But it should not eliminate its influence in these three areas of human life. Religion, science and social must go hand in hand with paper making. Other fields may be realized with digital turns such as economic sectors, entertainment, health, art etc. may still work well without paper.
Restriction of use only in the priority field is the solution that may be the best step. Religion needs scripture in order that its adherents understand in detail because in fact the existence of scripture should not be arbitrary to be replaced by something else. The embodiment of scripture that changed to digital will actually disturb the content of religious teachings.