The Naked Binder: Paper to Stone – Stone to Paper, October 2008

SOURCE: The Naked Binder
TITLE: Paper to Stone – Stone to Paper
BY: Ken
DATE: December 10, 2008
LINK: http://blog.nakedbinder.com/posts/paper-to-stone_-stone-to-paper.cfm

TEXT:
Naked Binder trolls the green space to find you the miracles of modern life - where one company creates papers from stones and another turning papers into stone.

Paperstone makes a material that can be used for countertops, partitions, desks, cutting boards and skateboard ramps out of paper. Skateboard ramps? well, alright.

Terraskin is making paper out of 80% Post-Industrial Calcium Carbonate Waste Material, in other words chalk, limestone… rocks.

This stuff is pretty cool. Terraskin is tear-resistant, tree-free, chlorine free, and water-resistant. I have seen it and it is hard to rip the stuff. Feels nice, too.Also for printing it requires 20% less ink. The stuff is around 75% mineral powder with the rest being a non-toxic resin. It requires no water to produce and in 3 to 9 months of being left out in nature it will degrade back to mineral powder if you don’t recycle it. It doesn’t say exactly how to recycle this, which is a drawback if you don’t want to leave it out in the yard to degrade.

Paperstone does the other way. Two of their productss are 100% recycled papers while one uses virgin fibers. Most PaperStone products are made from post-consumer waste, recycled paper and proprietary, petroleum-free, phenolic resins. They use organic pigments and are fire resistant. Also, using this may help your LEED rating. While they
“assure superior UV resistance, color stability and even color distribution through the entire panel” they also acknowledge that the colors will change somewhat over time mostly in the lighter colors. If you are a builder – this stuff can be routed and lasered for patterns or signage.