Fibre Analysis Public Summary Report: October 22 20111

Eight samples of Toilet Tissue products, taken from New Zealand retail stores, were analysed to determine the source of the wood used in their manufacture. The study was done by an independent analyst with no prior knowledge of the brand names or origin of the tissue products. Wood fibres are chemically and physically modified to achieve the final paper product, and so appear very different from the original tree wood fibres. In many kinds of tissue paper, various blends of hardwood (e.g. eucalyptus) and softwood (e.g. pine) are used to get the best paper properties (e.g. softness, smoothness and strength). The wood fibres in a paper product can be identified by specialist microscopic examination using standard international methods. The size and structural markings on softwood fibres identify the type of tree they came from. But hardwood fibres are alike in all trees, so particular cells (vessel elements) that are unique to different trees are used for identification purposes. That is why it can be difficult to exactly determine the proportion of different hardwood tree species in a paper sample. After microscopically examining thousands of fibres in the eight tissue samples, we found traces of unidentified vessels and fibres in all eight different samples. Subsequently, we were advised that Cottonsoft manufactured three of the tissue products examined. The fibre analyst determined that these three tissue samples were made up of hardwood fibres mostly from Acacia and Eucalypt trees (64-97%), with a small amount of softwood fibres from northern hemisphere Spruce and Pine trees (3-36%). There were small traces (less than 5%) of two unidentified hardwood vessel elements, or non-standard pulpwood fibres, in two samples and, in another, a trace (less than 2%) of a different type of unidentified northern hemisphere softwood was found. The dominance of the two hardwood species suggests that the wood fibres were sourced from plantation Acacia and Eucalypt trees, likely to be in the tropics, where both species are grown for pulpwood. Minor traces of unidentified hardwood vessels and softwood fibres species found in the samples may be due to fibre damage in the pulping process or because other species have entered the pulp fibre stream at some point. This could possibly be due to: - Contamination of waste fibre in the pulp or paper making process; - Incidental mixing of harvested pulpwood, which is not unexpected in fast growing plantation environments. There is no evidence from the fibre analysis that multispecies native tropical hardwood forest wood was used for the fibres in the Cottonsoft tissues.
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Full Report contains confidential information and other data on other tissue brands and is therefore not for public release COVEY CONSULTING PTY. LTD. PO Box 99, Kew East, Victoria, 3102 TEL: (03) 9859 4290, FAX: (03) 98594630
A.C.N. 050 482 301