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What about paper in all this? |
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 Even though you can now print and pay much less with your refills, don't forget the environment and restrain printing too much! Typewriters are now history and technology has made it possible to print at high volumes in no time at all.
Use them wisely so paper is not wasted and forests are preserved! At work or at home, - use paper's reverse side as drafts,
- photocopy & print on both sides,
- print documents only if it's really necessary,
- pass around documents rather than printing tons of copies,
- use recycled paper as often as possible
Definitions & applications of paper
- Grammage or gsm : It indicates the quantity of fibres present per square meter in grams. (gsm : grams per square meter)
- Thicknesses : Papers can have various thicknesses (in microns) and weights (in grams). Papers having the same weight don't necessarily have the same thickness. The more important the weight (gsm), the more opaque the paper will be. This is important for both sides printing, as rigidity and paper behaviour will be influenced by it. (Take for example a photo print; you don't want to see the cover side emerge or leak on the back side). An everyday paper has a gsm between 80g and 100g.
- Whiteness : It has its importance in the visual effect of a printed page; you can differentiate visual whiteness from measured whiteness. It's the measurement of light diffused by the sheet of paper compared to a benchmark which value is 100. By using optical blueing dye, you increase the whiteness of paper.
- Texture & opacity : The raw materials and techniques used for paper manufacturing will present different textures that you can feel when you touch it. The opacity (épair in French) is used to define the aspect of the paper's structure when you observe it in front of a light source. The more the paper is thin, the less it is opaque. Texture: We speak about homogeneous or molten opacity (or "épair") when it's regular and "cloudy aspect" when irregular.
- Smoothed surface : It's the amount of relief (profiles) on the surface. The more the paper is smoothed the less ink you'll need.
- Coated surface : Paper can have different coatings inserted after its manufacture on one or both sides to make its surface plain and microporous. This improves the whiteness, the aspect, its touché and its opacity.
There are two kinds of paper coatings: - paper coating without wood are manufactured from chemical paste
which confers them intense whiteness. They don't become yellowish.
- paper coating with wood are a mixture between chemical paste
and mechanical paste (from 35% to 65%)
- Ink-jet paper : the more sharpness you need, the more coated the paper should be, to allow a fast absorption of ink.
- Satin paper : is paper which its relief (profiles) have been smoothened on its surface. Satin paper should give you a sense of touching soft velvet.
- Matte paper : has no glare and has been only slightly smoothened. Matte paper is thick and very absorbing.
- Reproduction paper : these are papers adapted to document reproduction at large scale.
- Photocopy paper : this paper is dried out which means it contains only 4 to 5% of water instead of the 6 to 7% for standard papers. The paper will indeed be exposed to an important heat source and too much water could cause the paper to be distorted.
- Paper for laser printing : these ones are quite similar to photocopy papers, except for their reinforced stability and rigidity to be able to support high speed printing.
Facts & numbers
- Every 10 seconds, the planet's forest surface is reduced to the equivalent of 5 football fields.
- In Switzerland, we've used 225 kg of paper per citizen, that's 1.7 million tons per year! Approximately 1/5th of wood used in the manufacturing process of paper comes from ancient forests.
- In France, we've used 185 kg of paper per citizen, that's 11,6 million tons per year. That's 3,2 % of the world's consumption.
- 58% of the paper used in Switzerland come from recycling against 51,4 % in France.
- The world level of paper consumption is at 50kg per citizen. One interesting thing to observe is that the economic development of a country can be measured by its paper yearly consumption.
(facts of 2005) |
