Xerox squeezes 10% more paper from half the number of trees
Published October 17, 2007 at 3:33 pm · Filed under Printer / Copier
Xerox is offering businesses in the US the chance to reduce their environmental footprint and cut mailing costs by using lighter mechanical fibre papers in digital print devices for the first time.
Making paper by mechanically grinding wood into pulp uses far fewer resources than the chemical pulping process used to produce digital business papers.
According to Xerox, the mechanical process used to produce its new Xerox High Yield Business Paper uses 90% of the tree compared to 45% in chemical pulping; enables the production of lighter paper grades (Xerox says its 67gsm paper has the performance of a 75gsm stock); and consumes less water and fewer chemicals.
Despite these advantages, mechanical fibre paper has until now been unsuitable for use in digital printers as it produces too much dust and tends to curl under the heat needed to fuse an image to the paper. Xerox scientists have overcome these problems by developing a process to distribute fibres more evenly within the paper, which helps reduce curl, and by applying a surface treatment to the paper to minimise dust contamination.
Xerox’s Bruce Katz examines how samples of paper curl when exposed to humidity
Newly available in the US, Xerox High Yield Business Paper is suitable for printing transactional documents (invoices, statements etc.), direct mail pieces, short run books and business documents that don’t need to be archived.
