Xerox showcases new erasable paper

Xerox Corporation is unveiling its erasable paper to the public for the first time this week. The experimental paper can be printed on again and again, reducing paper use in the office and cutting back waste.

The erasable paper is coated with chemicals that react to light of a specific wavelength. When the paper is exposed to that wavelength, it creates visible text on the page. Within 24 hours, the paper erases itself and can be used again--good news in offices where 40% of all printouts are discarded the day they are printed.

The ability to re-image a sheet of paper has enormous environmental implications since re-use is much preferred to recycling. For example, it takes about 202,000 Joules to manufacture one sheet of virgin paper. Even to recycle that sheet takes 114,000 Joules. To re-image every pixel on Xerox erasable paper takes only about 200 Joules, so every re-use can save an enormous amount of energy. At 30 to 100 re-uses per sheet this amounts to a very large savings in energy. Currently there are about 2.5 trillion pages printed worldwide.