Paper, Recycled materials and Watermarking

What is Paper made from? 

There are many types of paper and board products available but most share many of the same ingredients.

The main content is wood fibre with Conifer, Maple and Eucalyptus being the most common. Each type of tree has a unique length of fibre and it is by combining the pulp from different varieties of tree that specialist paper characteristics can be achieved. Cotton can also be added, indeed, some papers are made of 100% cotton which gives a softer feel to the surface. The cotton used for paper making comes straight from the cotton fields where the cotton is harvested from the plants, made up into bales and supplied to the paper mill.

Recycled materials & Other Eco-friendly Options:

Recycled pulp is being used more and more in paper production and is often mixed with virgin pulp in varying proportions to achieve an improved substance to the paper. As more paper is recycled, the smaller the fibres become until eventually it is more difficult to bind the fibres together and the paper cannot be formed.

There are different sources of this recycled pulp, and can be categorised using the following terms:

Pre-Consumer Waste – This is paper product that has not made it out of the paper-making trade and to the final consumer. This could be Mill Broke (paper that has been made at the mill but for some reason is not required and is put back into the mixing vats for re-pulping) or white trimmings from envelope manufacture where the envelope shapes are cut out leaving unused trimmings around the edges - a bit like cutting pastry shapes where there is always a bit left unused.

Post-Consumer Waste – This means that the product has been sent out to the consumer, used and recollected for recycling. The type of waste collected may well govern what new paper product it can be used in. For instance, newsprint may well be used in board used for carton manufacture, whereas old photocopies may be used for various types of tinted papers or boards.

If considering a recycled paper or board, the chemicals used to clean the product (to de-ink it) should be looked into. When recycled papers first became available, some bleaches used for de-inking were environmentally harmful with Ammonia being used and dioxins being produced. Thankfully, nowadays the bleaches are a lot less harmful but never the less, should be taken into the equation.

At the moment the choice of Recycled papers and cards is fairly limited although the range is growing all the time with some excellent papers and cards now available with matching envelopes. Please contact one of our Stationery Advisors for further information and samples.

There are however other options for companies wishing to use more environmentally friendly papers and card, many materials now are 'FSC' certified, please see what this abbreviation means below:

FSC – This stands for the Forestry Stewardship Council. Paper conforming for an FSC rating means that the pulp from which the paper is made can be traced back to the forest from which the trees came and even the area of forest from which the tree was cut. It also means the tree has come from a sustainable source where more trees are planted than are cut down. Many business papers now conform to this FSC standard, so much so that we may well find a shortage of FSC pulp available for paper production. Hopefully this will encourage more foresters to conform as the market for their products is growing on a massive scale. (see http://www.fsc.org/en/about/about_fsc/mission, for more information)

Watermarking: 

Watermarking – This is a process achieved at the paper making stage where a design is made up and mounted onto a paper wire. The paper pulp is sprayed onto this wire, smoothed and dried enabling this watermark design to be visible on and through the paper. Many designs are available, but the more complicated ones would require a 'Dandy Roll' costing many thousands of pounds. Simpler designs would cost very much less but in either case there would be a minimum making of between one and two tonnes of paper (approx. 160,000 to 320,000 A4 sheets of 100gm) with a turnaround time of 4-6 weeks.

Downey has a unique system where an imitation 'watermark' can be printed onto the paper and exhibits all the characteristics of a true watermark, visible on and through the paper. It is best suited to white papers 90gm to 120gm in weight. The advantage of this process is that there is no minimum quantity.