A group of young Mexican entrepreneurs came up with a way to recycle plastic (PET) bottles: convert them into mineral paper, biodegradable in 6 months
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
A group of young Mexican entrepreneurs came up with a way to recycle plastic bottles (PET): convert them into mineral paper, biodegradable and equally useful for printing books, producing boxes and stationery in general.
The target? Eliminate the felling of trees and the use of up to 56 thousand liters of water for every ton of paper produced.
La mineral paper, in fact, also known as "stone paper”Is composed of 80% calcium carbonate (found widely in nature, especially in a large variety of rocks) and 20% natural resins. The stone paper is prepared by reducing stones containing calcium carbonate to powder and mixing them with special resins that give it its structure.
“We produce eco-friendly paper made from recycled plastic bottles, calcium carbonate and stone. We do not use water or chemicals, such as chlorine. Mineral paper is stronger than normal, cannot be broken by hand, is waterproof, has the quality of being photodegradable and absorbs only the necessary amount of ink when printing ", sciencedaily.com Adrian mai Nava, co-founder of the company “Cronologia”.
Countries such as Spain and Taiwan already use similar processes for the manufacture of mineral paper, but the one developed by the Mexican company would be del 15% cheaper because it does not require chemicals such as chlorine. Another advantage of this system is that a ton of mineral paper is produced with 235 kg of pellets (PET beads).
THE PROCESS
Before converting PET into paper, it is first necessary to convert the recycled plastic bottles into pellets, crushing them with various pieces of calcium carbonate, to create a mixture that is subjected to a melting process at over a hundred degrees centigrade to form large paper sheets.
The original idea of this type of work is to reduce production costs and avoid deforestation. Mexico alone, for example, currently produces 700 thousand tons of paper every year to meet the needs of the local market.
The obtained paper is degradable in 6 months. The only downside, the company says, is that the gel ink cannot be used on it because it contains alcohol, which the paper does not support.
Germana Carillo
Photo: sciencedaily.com
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