Paper from stone offers new solution to deforestation

With deforestation being one of the main global concerns, a company in Auckland has secured an agency to make papers from waste rocks.

The process of creating stone paper was first started in Taiwan in 1999, and it has been under development since then.

In 2009, Auckland-based Stone Paper Company branded the product ‘Rockstock’ for the Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific markets.

The demand for global paper is 400 million tonnes and it is estimated to shoot up to 500 million tonnes in the next decade.

Stone Paper Company uses waste rocks from the building industry such as stone rock, marble, and tiles, as it is rich in Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). The products produced by Rockstock essentially contain 80.9 per cent of CaCO3.

The waste marble is cracked to 30 mm pebbles and then grounded to fine CaCO3 powder (as found in tofu, baby powder, paint, and toothpaste). The powder is mixed with High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) resin (18 per cent), which is just a minor ingredient that turns into pellets and then converts it into rolls of paper.

The pulp-based paper industry uses acid, alkali, bleach, and other adhesive chemicals that give colour and texture to the final product. Stone Paper manufacturing uses no chemicals to whiten the product, as CaCO3 gives the white colour and makes the end product more environmental friendly.

The papers produced using this technology is divided into two classes: R-Class, the papers that can be recycled, and S-Class, the sustainable range.

“These papers are of much superior quality from the papers available in the market, and it is environmentally friendly as well. It does not emit carbon dioxide into the air, does not need water and chemicals that otherwise pollute the river streams and affect the natural habitat,” Alan Good, CEO of Rockstock said.

Other products produced by Rockstock are carry bags, gift, food and storage bags, paper coffee containers, paper boards, self-adhesives, etc.

The rich mineral stone papers are non-toxic and photodegradable. The process of discarding the product also does not harm the environment. It solidifies and turns as hard as an egg shell when kept under the heat of the sun, eventually turning into dust and mixing with the soil.

Rockstock is a tree-free paper that preserves the rapidly diminishing forests. By utilising ground up waste (CaCO3) as the essential substance rather than tree fibre, Rockstock replaces a constrained and required resource with a superfluous mineral, considered as generation waste in different businesses.

Rockstock products are already being seen in the market. The papers used as receipts in the supermarkets, parking tickets, thermoformed range of food trays, polythene lookalike photodegradable carry bags, etc., are mostly Rockstock products.

For every tonne of paper manufactured by this process as compared to pulp-based paper production, 7480 gallons of fresh water is saved, 19.05 kg of water-borne waste is reduced, approximately 20 trees are less chopped, and less CO2  and other chemicals are emitted into the environment.

Rockstock produces four million tonnes of paper every year that has a huge market in the United States, UK, and Canada and an increasing market in New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific region.