Re-thinking Paper Supply Chains

So we all know that using forests in a non-sustainable manor is counter productive to our supply chains and just plain old really bad for the environment. We actually have a lot of choices here, one way to take some pressure of our forests is to develop more tree free paper choices. Agricultural pulp has a lot of promise, perhaps using wheat and grass residuals for more paper pulp. We are conducting experiments in this regard.

As another example on a different side of the paper supply chain applying the concept of bio-mimicry:

I have this huge oak tree over my home, of which I clean up the leaves ever year, one day it dawned on me that a dried up big old oak leaf (natures paper) if pretty much a sheet of paper with veins running through it. I’ll bet leaf fiber could be used to create human paper also. It’s a renewable resource and the tree gets to live out its life and contributes every year.

The amount of bio-mass production could possibly equal that of harvesting the living tree itself. In the Northeastern USA where I live it is collected in mass quantities by municipalities each year. Perhaps we can pulp it and compress it and turn it into paper drinking cups, leaves have a natural waxiness to them which could aid in making them waterproof. I am now working with Canopy on looking into the feasibility of a commercially viable product.