December 1, 2015

PaperLab is reportedly the first machine ever to produce new paper from securely shredded waste paper without the use of water.

The localised recycling device can produce the first new sheet of paper within about three minutes of being loaded and pressing the start button. It can produce roughly 14 A4 sheets per minute and 6,720 in an eight-hour work day.

PaperLab can produce a variety of paper types, from A4 to A3 office paper of various thicknesses to business card paper, colour paper and even scented paper, and breaks down the paper into paper fibres, completely destroying the original information on the sheet.

The OEM plans to put the new device into commercial production in Japan in 2016, with sales strategies for other region to be decided at a later date. A prototype of the machine is to be on display at Eco-Products 2015, an environmental exhibition in Tokyo this month.

Epson hopes the PaperLab will “give new value to paper and stimulate recycling” and help businesses “fundamentally change the way they think about paper”. The process eliminates the need for a contractor to handle waste paper and the need for about a cup of water to make a single A4 sheet of paper that is usually needed.

The Dry Fibre technology involves the three technologies of fibreising, binding and forming. The waste paper is first transformed into long, thin, cottony fibres and then bound, at different strengths or with different whiteness of the paper, with colour, flagrance, flame resistance and other properties added as needed.

It is then formed into A4 and A3 paper, with different densities and thicknesses.