Nowadays, deforestation is a hot topic. More and more trees are being cut out for many reasons. According to the article on livescience.com “forests cover more than 30% of the Earth’s land surface. […] The tropics lost about 158,000 square kilometers of forest in 2017”. This number is huge. Trees are very important in our lives because they are producing oxygen that is necessary to live.
Because of that, a special paper which is made of rocks was created. It is waterproof, better for the environment and can last long. This “paper is made of about 80% calcium carbonate. A Taiwanese supplier, Taiwan Lung Meng Advanced Composite Materials, pulverizes the rock left from construction and quarries, fuses it with plastic that holds it together, then compresses it with massive rollers until it’s paper-thin.” The process of making stone paper is not that complicated and it uses leftovers that are not needed anymore.
There are already few companies on the market which are using such paper. They are not cheap, considering a notebook on karststonepaper.com costs around $25 and on agood.com $29, but they are better for the environment and can help reduce deforestation.
This kind of material is new and unknown, so when it comes to recycling no one can tell exactly where we should throw it away.
There are also a few disadvantages of this paper.
First of all, you can’t use fountain pens on this paper (they are waterproof so it wouldn’t work). This paper “can be used in inkjet printers, but laser printers are off-limits because of their heat and the plastic in the stone paper.” However, are those really strong disadvantages?
What’s more?
On agood.com besides notebooks made of rocks you can also find pens made of grass or glue sticks made from recycled BPA-free plastics.
What do you think of this idea? Would you use stone paper? Let me know!
References:
- https://www.cnet.com/news/worried-about-trees-you-can-take-notes-on-stone-paper-made-from-rock/
- https://karststonepaper.com
- https://agood.com
- https://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html
- http://www.mynewsdesk.com/blog_posts/what-is-stone-paper-54297
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Papier-Zukunft-waterproof-environmentally-innovation/dp/B01IYTS0VE
What an innovative approach for tackling deforestation, I’m really in awe of it. It is immense pity that there is such a small level of knowledge about that alternative. I hope there will be wider distribution in local stores.
I’m so happy that more and more ways for reducing deforestation are creating! Such a pity, that usually it’s very expensive….People are not ready to pay such a big amount of money for it yet. Hope that after some time humanity will increase their knowledge in this sphere and it’ll become more popular.
It is very intresting topic as Amazon deforestation is crucial for our lives in the long-term view, but as you mentioned cost of getting a simple notebook is just scary. Not mentioning supplying companies that need tons of paper per year! I hoped that someone will mention replacement for every day use “thing” and you did it. great blog!
As Nedilenko Oleksandra said this alternative is is expensive and people are not ready for paying a huge sum of money yet but this is just the beginning as time goes people will find a way to reduce the cost and if not people will have a better understanding of the environmental situation and maybe then wont mind paying for it
I find this a wonderful invention that can help the environment.