LONDON: The ink on printed office paper could soon be being removed to produce white sheets ready to be used like new, thanks to a technology developed by a Cambridge-based clean tech start up.
Reduse is developing a so-called “unprinting” technology capable of turning printed sheets back into blank paper. It works by shooting laser beam pulses at the toner printer on the paper, which is vaporised and vacuumed away without damaging the paper.
“Why is it that when we throw paper in the bin, we can’t reuse it first?” Hidde-Jan Lemstra, co-founder and chief executive of Reduse, asked a group of entrepreneurs and clean tech executives at the Cleantech Forum Europe conference in Lyon on Tuesday. “Why can’t we turn sheets we print back into beautiful crisp white sheets? Well, of course we can, it’s 2016.”
The developers say the technology will help to reduce the massive amount of paper thrown out in offices around the world. “On average we use 10,000 of [office paper] sheets per person every single year,” said Lemstra, adding that 40 per cent of them are thrown away the same day they are printed, and 80 per cent disposed of within a week. “The waste of paper is tremendous, and it isn’t even necessary because we can reuse paper.”
The developers say their technology is a better option than the chemical use and CO2 emissions which come hand in hand with paper recycling. They also estimate that the technology can deliver cost savings on paper purchasing of around 40 per cent, based on reusing each piece of paper one time. Further dsavings could aslo be delivered by reducing the need to recycle old paper, they added.
There is a catch though – the Unprinter can only work on sheets which are free from ballpoint pen, post-its and staples – which the company says equates to around 30 per cent of sheets put in waste paper bins. However, if users replaced their ballpoint pens with a special pencil developed by Reduse, the firm says the proportion of sheets suitable for reuse could be increased to 65 per cent.
“What we’re designing is a system that acts like a paper bin,” said Lemstra. “I don’t want to implement any kind of behaviour change. I fundamentally believe if people have to change their behaviour, it’s not going to work. So the Unprinter will take anything you throw at it: staples, paper clips, post it notes, laminated sheets, but it will reject them, it will not even try to unprint them.”
The science behind the Unprinter was first developed in 2012 by a team of researchers led by Reduse co-founder Dr David Leal at the University of Cambridge, before being spun out into a start-up company. Ultimately the firm want to put the technology inside a normal printer, however first their mission is to put an Unprinter in every office in the world.
The firm is not the first to develop a machine which unprints toner from paper. Japanese tech giant Toshiba launched a similar machine back in 2013, however it is currently only suitable for use with a specific blue Toshiba ink.
“With our technology you can remove all print from all paper when it’s laser printed or photocopied in any colour,” said Lemstra. “It doesn’t matter which machine you’ve used, it doesn’t matter which paper you’ve used or which toner you’ve used, our technology gets rid of it.”
The firm is now spending £1m in venture capital, raising its next investment round of £4m, and says it is in conversations with several big printer manufacturers.
Lemstra was presenting his firm on Tuesday at an event on finding ways to reduce waste at the CleanTech Forum Europe conference in Lyon. Other zero-waste start ups promoting their technologies included Votechnik, a spin out company from the University of Limerick whose equipment helps recycle hazardous waste material from LCD flat screens, and an intelligent monitoring service for waste collectors from Irish firm SmartBin.
