Product Specification

Stone Paper RPD140um Waterpfoof Tear Resistant Biodegradable For Notebook Children Books Bags Envelops Origami Album

Stonepaper – material & recycling

1. How is stone paper made?

The stone paper production process is an invention from Taiwan. Over the past 20 years, a technology was developed to produce paper with less impact on the World than traditional pulp paper. The stone paper now has a Cradle to Cradle silver certificate and the technology is spreading rapidly around the World. We would like to share the basic process of making stone paper.

The stones used for the production of stone paper are calcium carbonate, and come from mines. The color of the stones, is the color that the paper will take on. Therefore, mainly white/yellow-white stones are used.

These stones are ground to dust, then mixed with a little (partly recycled) HDPE. This component functions as ‘glue’ for the stone minerals. Due to this combination of resources, recycling of the material becomes infinite. The Calcium Carbonate minerals don’t lose their form, as opposed to pulp paper fibers that do break after recycling and end up as waste in the end.

The heated mix of HDPE and dust pellets, become a texture comparable to a balloon. This mixture can be stretched out very high, and thus as thin as wished for. At the same time the material cools down and can then be rolled up into paper rolls.

2. Why is stone paper more sustainable than pulp paper?

In this chart, you can see the difference in resource usage in production for both stonepaper and virgin – as well as recycled pulp paper.

3. Why did stone paper receive a cradle to cradle certificate?

Stone paper is cradle to cradle certified by the official cradle to cradle Institute. The paper has a silver cradle to cradle label. On the right you can see what valuation was given to different aspects of the paper production.

Cradle to cradle literally means there is no ‘grave’ for the product after it has been used. The material does not need to leave any waste behind after usage, but can be properly recycled.

4. How to recycle stone paper?

Stone paper is made from original stonep powder and can thus be recycled easily.

In theory, stonepaper is infinitely recyclable. If there were a stonepaper recycling stream, we would be able to fully re-use all stonepaper. However, in practice this still works a bit different, mainly due to a lack of sufficient volume for an own recycling stream.

We advise you to throw away stone paper, with plastic recycling (stream 2). This way, the paper can be fully incorporated in an existing recycling stream. The Calcium Carbonate (the stone that is used) is already a common additive to some plastic products and will thus be properly recycled.

Stonepaper will be recognized as a non-pulppaper product in most recycling streams that we know of. It will thus be filtered out with other products that are not recyclable in a paper recycling stream. Then, it will be processed according to the facilities rules. Sometimes this means that it will be burned, or that it will be sorted and used in proper plastic recycling. The stonepaper will in fact be recognized as a plastic-type product.

Just to make sure – we recommend you recycle stone paper with plastic recycling.

5. Will the HDPE in stone paper be replaced with bioplastic?

A lot of research and development is done to continuously improve the sustainability of the stonepaper and its production process.

Tests are being done with bioplastic replacing the HDPE component of the stonepaper. This will most likely be a bioplastic variety that is not made from a food resource, but for example from non-consumable weeds.

At this moment, the HDPE component is made from partly recycled plastic.