Paper Goods Company Is Investigating an Alternative to Trees (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0184896606
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/08/065247/paper-goods-company-is-investigating-an-alternative-to-trees
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/andrex-maker-plots-toilet-paper-050000350.html
And the move comes "amid growing pressure on manufacturers regarding their reliance on wood fibre from freshly felled trees," [2]reports The Telegraph . "Campaigners claim that more than one million trees are cut down every day..."
> Unlike trees, hesperaloe can be grown on dry, low-quality farmland unsuitable for most food crops and harvested much more quickly. Kimberly-Clark [3]said it had tested more than 70 potential materials before settling on hesperaloe. Earlier candidates included wheat straw, corn waste, seaweed, algae and chicken feathers. The US consumer goods giant will now develop the fibre at a pilot factory in Yuma, Arizona, working with local growers to determine whether the crop can be cultivated for commercial use in its tissue products. "This represents an exciting moonshot for Kimberly-Clark and the culmination of more than two decades of materials and plant science expertise," said Craig Slavtcheff, who is helping develop the new toilet paper.
>
> However, the company said products made from hesperaloe remained years away from supermarket shelves, with further research needed before the fibre could be produced at the scale required for global manufacturing. The US-based company has invested about $250m (£190m) in the project and filed more than 30 patents linked to the technology.
[1] https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/kimberly-clark-unveils-breakthrough-that-could-change-how-manufactures-products/287-7abd03c8-9201-4aa1-92f0-70fb1ecc4c66
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/andrex-maker-plots-toilet-paper-050000350.html
[3] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kimberly-clark-unveils-proprietary-alternative-natural-fiber-innovation-program-to-advance-its-better-care-for-a-better-world-commitment-302841186.html
i bet they're buying them for their water content (Score:2)
And who doesn't want softer toilette paper?
Hemp? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wasn't hemp supposed to be so good and so cheap that William Hearst fought a war against it to keep his forest empire profitable? Why aren't we using more hemp, then?
Re: (Score:2)
I found it curious that they apparently did not even consider the obvious alternative - which as you say is hemp. There is a lot known about turning hemp into paper - even toilet paper - and they seem to be ignoring or oblivious to it. The problem with hemp is the same as the problem with hesperaloe will be - supply. Hemp paper is expensive because the supply of hemp stalks is limited, so it does not scale up to the capacity of wood pulp to create economy of scale price efficiencies.
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Well, it can't grow in the same places, but bamboo into paper is already a thing. And it grows quite quickly in the appropriate environment.
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> Well, it can't grow in the same places, but bamboo into paper is already a thing. And it grows quite quickly in the appropriate environment.
Some bamboo species are even halophiles, growing where there is low-quality, brackish water and pulp-yielding trees are rare as hen's teeth.
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That was my first (and second) thought as well: Grow bamboo (but maybe not in the Arizona desert).
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Yes. you are 100% correct.
Try and find a copy of "The Emperor Wears No Cloths" by Jack Herrer. It has the full timeline and loads of informative tid bits about the efforts to keep Hemp Illegal in the USA and abroad and what people are doing to get those laws over turned.
That one book completely changed my views about Hemp. Well worth the effort to find and read.
Fun Trivia:
One acre of Hemp can produce the same amount of usable cellulose in one year as an acre of Trees every 10 years.
Paper can be made from
Nuts (Score:2)
I can't imagine spending £190 million and not being completely done and ready to go to market. I thought bamboo had already solved the don't have to cut trees down side of things.
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I'm guessing water use is a problem with bamboo? Hopefully they dont do something stupid and just depend on one plant that gets wiped out by an invasive species or fungus too.
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There it is - the stupidest thing I've read all day.
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Also, low-water-use plants tend to also be slow-growing. That's why they use so little water.
Hesperaloe produces 1.5 kg per cubic meter of water. This is comparable to the water use efficiency of forests used for paper, which is between 1.5 and 4 or so. So this actually requires as much water as trees, if not more. The only advantage, if you can call it that, is being able to plant it in places were trees won't grow.
But the problem is that this also means you'll be cultivating plants grown far apart,
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> it seems like a solution in search of a problem.
A solution in search of a subsidy?