1 Product Description: Generally paper is defined as all kinds of malted or filled sheets of fiber. Hand made paper is a paper made from fiber containing waste. The proposed product will be produced from waste paper, textile cuttings, agricultural waste and grass. Since the manufacturing process is labor intensive, the paper is known as hand made paper.
2 Market Potential: Paper products are used for a variety of purposes for writing, printing, duplicating, packaging and for other industrial and commercial uses. Currently the demand for paper in the country is met both from domestic production and imports. Consumption of a paper in a country depends on the level of economic development, the level of literacy rate of the population, on the development of the publishing and printing industry, the size of student population at primary, secondary and tertiary level. Generally least developed countries have the lowest level of per capita paper consumption. In Ethiopia, per capita consumption of paper is estimated to be between 0.5 kg to 1.0 kg per year, while in advanced countries the consumption level is move than 100 kgs per year. Even the low level of paper consumption in Ethiopia is not fully met by domestic production. According to a study made on the market for paper products, the demand for paper is projected to reach 148,000 tons in 2011. However, the current domestic production is about 17,000 tons per year. This clearly indicates that there is large captive market for paper in the country. This project idea is to exploit part of this captive market by establishing a plant which can produce hand made paper.
3 Source of Raw Materials: The main raw materials are waste paper, textile cuttings, agricultural waste, grass, caustic soda, bleaching powder and other chemicals. Almost all materials can be obtained from domestic sources.
4 Process and Technology: The main production or processing stages include collecting and mixing the various waste material inputs, grinding/milling the waste materials, blending the digested raw material inputs with caustic soda, adding the various chemicals and coloring materials, refining/beating of the pulp, moulding and forming a wet sheet, pressing the waste sheet and drying, and (finally) polishing the dried paper and forming sheets of paper as final product. About 17 pieces of machinery and equipment are needed for the plant. Some of the important ones are drag chopper, jute and grass cutter, digester for rags or jute, Hollander baiter roller, cylinder and auto vats for lifting purposes, hydraulic press with single ram cylinder and pumping unit drying chamber equipment, calendaring machine, paper cutting machine, knife grinder platen printing equipment, cutting machine, screen printing equipment, eyeleting machine, greasing machine and perforating machine.
5 Estimated Investment: For a plant that will produce 5000 tons of hand made paper, working 300 days per year with one shift/day operation, the estimated investment will be:-
§ Building/Shade 3000m2 at Birr 1500/m2 = Birr 4,500,000
§ Plant and Machinery ............................ = Birr 1,400,000
§ Working capital................................... = Birr 550,000
