The Future Of Paper

The Future of Paper Sumi Das: Pound for pound workers in the U.S. use a lot of paper. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that the average American worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper every year. Breaking the paper habit isn't easy. Many people prefer reading a printed page over a computer screen. But research shows that much of what we print isn't used for very long. Eric Shrader: We found that between a quarter and a third of the paper that people print in the office gets thrown away the day they print it. Sumi Das: Of course paper can be recycled, but only a handful of times, so the future of paper may look like this. Eric Shrader: The paper itself changes color. There's no ink going on to the paper, there's no toner going out to the paper and then later over time that image fades and you can put that same piece of paper back into your printer and print a new image. Sumi Das: Scientists at Xerox and the Palo Alto Research Center or PARC have invented paper that can be re-used dozens of times. Eric Shrader: This paper contains especial coating that has a material and it get similar to the material in photogrey sunglasses, you know those sunglasses where you go outside they turn dark you come back inside they turn light. And how that material works is when a photon of light hits the molecule, the molecule opens up and it turns into the dark form and then overtime the molecule closes back up and turns into the clear form. Sumi Das: This technology is completely ink-free. The image is formed using an array of light emitting diodes or LEDs in a unit attached to the printer. It means that businesses would no longer have to buy expensive toner. Eric Shrader: The technology in the printer is really a high brightness LED, so the LED scans over the paper and turns on where you want the molecules to change to the dark state. Sumi Das: The reusable paper is yellow to avoid mix-ups with documents printed on traditional paper. The technology has some limitations. It can't produce color images and workers will have to be cautious with reusable paper if they're outdoors. Exposure to the sun could ruin the image. Eric Shrader: The things we still need to work on are the overall development of the printer architecture and making the image lifetime longer. Right now the image lifetime is about a day and we think a few days is probably a better fit to customer needs. Sumi Das: By cutting back on paper consumption, companies not only help their bottom line, but also the environment. Eric Shrader: Paper has a huge environmental impact. One piece of paper to make that piece of paper takes about the same amount of energy as running a 60-watt light bulb for an hour. Sumi Das: The future of paper it may appear and disappear before your eyes. For BNET I'm Sumi Das.