In Mexico, Young entrepreneurs have developed a system that can convert PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles into a type of mineral paper that is waterproof and phytodegradable. In this way, they save 20 trees and 56,000 litres of water for every ton of paper produced.
It is manufactured by a company called Cronology, the new technique claims to be
15 percent cheaper than traditional paper manufacturing methods because
it doesn’t use water or chemicals such as chlorine, as well as being far
more environmentally friendly.
Ever Adrian Nava, co-founder of Cronology said, "By not cutting trees, nor using water we reduce costs and help the planet. The mineral paper is stronger than the standard, you can not break it with your hands, is waterproof, has the quality of being photodegradable and only absorbs the necessary amount of ink when printing." in the press release.
Mineral paper is also known as peta paper and stone paper, and it meets
the quality standards required to be used to print books, general
stationary and also boxes.
It’s not the first time that plastic has been turned into paper - in
Spain and Taiwan companies are already manufacturing paper using a
similar process - but the team claims that the Cronology system is four
times cheaper than other methods.
The process works by first breaking plastic bottles down into bead
like pellets with pieces of calcium carbon and stone. The resulting
pellet mixture is then heated to more than 100 degrees Celsius and
rolled out into large sheets of paper - using a machine that’s sort of
like the kind used for tortilla manufacturing, the release adds.
It
takes 235 kilograms of PET bottles in order to make one ton (907
kilograms) of mineral paper - but the process also saves those bottles
from ending up in landfill, so it's a win/win.
The only downside,
the team notes, is that you can't write on the resulting paper with ink
gel because it contains alcohol. But regular ink works fine.
The
company was funded after winning a competition for emerging green
companies in Mexico, and its aim is to help reduce costs and
deforestation in the country, which currently produces 700,000 tons of
paper per year.
Source: ScienceDaily
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