Abstract

Ethiopia now has over 130 active flower-growing farms and is the fourth largest non-EU exporter of cut-flower to the European Union and the second largest flower exporter from Africa. Waste disposal is a major concern in the world. Diversity in the content of waste create problem in its reduction. The floral waste is directly disposed into the rivers, lakes and open space which has bad impact on the water quality as well the living organisms present in the waters. The impact on land is eminent spatially when it is in large size. Conventional methods of floral waste disposal include disposal in nearby water sources or in the landfill, incinerations, biogas and composting. The methods create environmental pollution and emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere due to aerobic decomposition of the waste material. However, now there are modern approach to convert the floral green wastes into value-added products such as cardboard, carton (packaging materials) and some other useful but still biodegradable products. In this study the natural paper from floral green waste with bleaching agents of (Calcium carbonate, Sodium carbonate, Glue and Magnesium sulphate) used meet the standard of ISO 6519:2016 about Basic Paper for Laminated Wrapping Paper within the parameter of pH and water content and ISO 8218:2015. All of the various papers from floral green waste meet the standard of water content stated by SNI. The result showed that the type of bleaching agent affects the pH value of the paper produced. The pH value for CaCO3 as Bleaching is 7.21 which is the highest value. But for Glue as Bleaching the value stands at 6.70 which is the lowest value. As for commercial paper the value was 7.55. Papers from floral green waste with all bleaching agent used meet the standard of ISO 6519:2016 about Basic Paper for Wrapping Paper on the parameter of pH and water content. The results show that natural wrapping paper from floral green waste with Na2CO3 as Bleaching has the closest characteristics of commercial wrapping paper. It has pH of 6.95, the water content of 7.12%, gram mage of 356.67 gram/m2 and the brightness level of 20.45%.