The Sweetest Paper Ever

Wait what??!! Sugar sheet paper??

I was in London Drugs last week, picking up some stuff from the Photo department and as I looked to the left, I saw it... "Sugar Sheet Copy Paper". I had to look twice because it was kind of like... "what?!".

But that's what it says and... yes, Forest Free. No trees were cut down to make this paper. Wow...

When I got home I did a bit of digging and this paper is made from leftover sugar cane, after all the sweet stuff has been extracted. Normally the sugar cane remnants would be plowed back into the soil but... some bright kitten came up with the idea of using it to make paper. And... voila... sugar cane paper. And... it's a Canadian company (SocialPrint.com) based in New Westminster. Very cool...

Although... there is the added shipping impact... the paper is made with Colombian sugar cane waste sooo... there is some transport involved. Which isn't great... but I love the idea of using the waste of something like sugar cane to make something else. Of course... the sugar industry as a whole is not super eco-friendly either... and in promoting sugar cane paper, we may just be shifting deforestation from the temperate boreal forests to the tropical rain forests. So... there are a few different factors to consider in this.

Although... I did find a UBC research paper which seemed to weigh all these different factors and conclude that sugar cane paper has a smaller environmental footprint than paper made from wood pulp...

But... get this... sugar cane paper is not a new thing. Paper made from sugar cane or sorghum waste has been around since at least the late 1930s. And a lot of paper in tropical countries is made from sugar cane waste. Go figure... I guess people use whatever is at hand. Like the Egyptians making paper from papyrus reeds. And there's even paper made from bamboo. I guess for us here in Canada... it's a matter of how much do we love our forests... and do we really want to chop down a 500 year old tree to make copy paper... particularly when it takes many decades to repopulate the forests? It would seem that a quicker turn-around crop like sugar cane or sorghum or bamboo would make more sense.

But then... there's always the question... what's the cost? Well, at London Drugs last week... Sugar Sheet copy paper was $6.99 (on sale - regular price is $7.99) for a ream which isn't that far off from Staples, which sells a regular ream of paper for $5.99 normally. Huh... that's not bad.

Sugar cane clam shell from Staples

So then I had to check and see... does Staples sell this stuff? The answer is no... They do sell 8.5 x 11 pads of lined sugar cane paper... 2 pads of 50 pages each for $4.92. Mmm... not what I'm looking for. On the other hand, Staples does sell "Styrofoam-style" clam shells made from sugar cane... they're not made from petroleum byproduct "Styrofoam" but from sugar cane waste. Which is cool. I wonder what sort of clam shells our favourite take-out restaurant uses? And how does one tell the difference?

Anyhow... back to paper... I also learned that there is even the possibility of paper made from wheat straw... which would be pretty cool too. But paper mills would have to retro-fit their equipment and... until there is a demand, it's not going to happen. Plus wheat straw isn't quite strong enough to be made into paper so needs to be mixed with other pulp fibres. Still... these are all steps in the right direction I think.

I may have to pick up some reams of this paper the next time I'm at London Drugs... It's one small step...