Green printing tip no. 36: Is Free Tree Bamboo Good for Printing Books?

We are back today with a new tip on our weekly series of green printing tips, where we bring you information on green printing in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer.

Today Greg is presenting us with an interesting option of paper for printing books with a tree free secret ingredient: bamboo.

Is Free Tree Bamboo Good for Printing Books?

Tip #36

That is a good question. Many of my clients are afraid of using Tree Free paper.They think this paper will fall apart. Actually, the bamboo paper is strong, and looks like normal paper.

Neenah Paper now carries this line under the umbrella of their Environment line. Their swatch book, which is my favorite, includes 100% post-consumer waste, 80% PCW waste, and 30% PCW, plus Bamboo mixed with Sugar Cane fiber. You can check it out on their website - www.neenahpaper.com. Go to the right column on the homepage (which is actually their virtual swatch book) and click on Environment Papers.

Sugar Cane and Bamboo fiber make up half of the content of this new line. The other half is post-consumer waste paper. So, we have a mixture of 25% Bamboo, 25% Sugar cane, and 50% PCW.

You have a choice of white paper, that looks like normal book paper or two earth colors. A natural color and a beige color.Some of our clients want the paper to look like a real recycled sheet, and some want the paper to look like a normal paper. The paper comes in book weights and cover weights. The white is 96 brightness, which we consider a bright white sheet.

We have these papers in large size sheets in both the text and cover weight. That makes it possible to run large quantity books on our 40” presses. We also can cut the paper to digital sizes, for the On Demand Market.

We offer both small runs digitally, and large runs via offset. Bamboo, mixed with Sugar Cane and PCW is chlorine free, FSC certified, and Wind E certified.

And the price? The price point is higher than our 100% PCW line, and the less expensive, and less environmental lines that contain 30% PCW.

For additional information on bamboo paper, please call Greg Barber at (973) 224-1132, or email greg@gregbarberco.com.

Also, if you have any questions you would like us to address in future tips please email us to info@ecolibris.net .

You can find links to all the tips we published so far on our green printing tips page, which is part of our green printing tools & resources.

You can also find further valuable information on Greg Barber Company's website - http://www.gregbarberco.com.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing!