Trees have to be cut for making of paper. Figures about the number of reams, cartons and even sheets that can be manufactured from a tree are available on the internet. One tonne of uncoated virgin (jargon for non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees. One ream (500 sheets) uses 6 per cent of a tree.
JK Paper Limited, producer of branded paper, conducted an awareness programme for its retailers and distributors here on Friday.
The paper manufactured using ‘Colorlok’ technology developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP) reduced the “strikethrough” (again jargon for ink showing on the back of the paper). This allowed printing on both sides of the page reducing the consumption of paper by 50 per cent, thus reducing number of trees to be cut down to produce paper.
There are many more benefits of Colorlok paper which is being manufactured only by JK Paper in the country. HP has made the technology available to JK Paper after conducting 127 different tests on it.
JK Paper General Manger Debasish Ganguly explaining the benefits of Colorlok paper said that it locked the ink at the surface of the paper.
Science behind it
There is a scientific explanation to how this happened. The ink vehicles used to keep pigments suspended are anionic (negatively charged). When pigments come into contact with certain cationic, or positively charged, salts they rapidly come out of suspension or flocculate.
Colorlok paper was manufactured using such cationic salts. This allowed the ink vehicle to penetrate the paper without transporting the pigment particles into the paper. Rapid pigment immobilisation also reduces ‘feathering’ from capillary forces that cause ink vehicle to wick along surface fibres. Colorlok thus enabled the print to have vivid colours, bolder blacks and faster drying, he said. He said that JK Paper showed tremendous environmental responsibility by promoting social forestry and had 100 per cent buy-back deals with farmers.
Colorlok paper also increased the life of printers by 40 to 60 per cent reducing the e-waste. The ‘fuser’ (one of the rollers in the printer) that pressed the ink on to the paper lasted longer because of Colorlok, said deputy general manager V. K. Anil Kumar.
