Paper

There should be paper in the game (wood->wood chips, wood chips+water->paper or something like that). This could come in early on to have more uses for wood.
Paper could be (an additional) resource for sciencelabs until you get something more advanced (e.g. consumer electronics/computers) as the researchers would likely take notes of their research. The used paper could then yield waste-paper as recycling-ressource for later on.
Probably the citizens would also like to read books?