What's Happening in Toronto, ON…

A special 500-copy run of the book In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Toronto writer Margaret Atwood has just been published on Second Harvest Paper; the paper is made from leftover straw and recycled paper. It is the first book in North American to be printed on this new and revolutionary paper which was developed by Canopy. Canopy is an advocacy group that is trying to convince those in the printing services industry to switch to papers that do not contribute to the destruction of endangered trees and ancient growth forests.

In explaining why they chose straw, Canopy states that there is:

“enough left over straw in North America to keep up to 800 million trees”

and to keep four pulp mills running full time. The paper was tested on three different printers and the papers reacted similarly to other papers.

Of course, the technology is rather expensive right now; the book sells for $100 per copy. However, once more and more paper manufacturers discover straw and begin to use it prices will inevitably go down. The fact that there is so much material readily available to create this paper is exciting.

While we are supposedly moving towards a paperless society, something that appears to be happening very slowly, we must find new materials and new ways to save our planet’s resources. Trees that are cut down are replanted but our forests are still being destroyed daily; new technologies such as using straw to make paper are vital if we wish to stop this. The majority of our oxygen on Earth comes from forests; we cannot allow them to disappear.