A New Leaf: Making Paper From Weeds

[DogPoundPup]

The giant reed (Arundo donax) is mostly green. It's a weed that looks a lot like bamboo.

Native from the Mediterranean to India, the enormous grass colonizes stream beds of the coastal United States. Growing in wetlands, it chokes out native plants, threatens animal life, is a fire hazard and poses problems to existing infrastructure such as bridges. The Plant Conservation Alliance has named it to its "Least Wanted" list.

"There's a reason for almost everybody to hate it," said Jeff Beehler, senior environmental project manager of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority in Riverside, Calif.

But there are a few folks who don't hate it. In fact, they see potential for its rapid growth.

Since arundo is a rapid renewable resource — literally growing like a weed — it is a promising non-wood source for paper. The big advantage is that it grows fast and produces a lot of material. It grows so well, in fact, that there are accounts of green shoots 6 to 8 inches tall, pushing their way through the still smoldering ground soon after a fire. With its rate of growth and its size (easily reaching the height of a two-story building), the biomass production per area of land is astounding.

Producing paper with 100 percent arundo had been the vision of the late Ernett Altheimer, who founded The Nile Group in 1996 to work with alternative fibers.

The department of paper science and engineering at the University of Washington is the world leader in alternative fiber research. Professor Mark Lewis has been doing research at the university for 10 years and worked with Nile as its technical adviser.

Together, they had two successful trial runs turning arundo, harvested from a California eradication effort, into paper. "We found it to be a superior plant material, more than anything else we've seen. It runs similar to wood," Lewis said.

There's another benefit to the weed in an era of climate change. "It's one of the largest, fasted biomass producers and will sequester carbon 15 times more per acre than Douglas fir trees," Lewis explained. "And, it can be grown in most areas in the U.S." — meaning that growing the weed en masse may reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more at http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/729

[rzemanfl]

1. I come from the days when if you had some weed, you needed

papers....

[kestrel91316]

2. Arundo is an ECOSYSTEM DESTROYER. If you want it, grow it in its

native environment. And while you are at it, take the fucking stuff back there with you. (not you personally, DPP)

[izquierdista]

5. It's a wonderful plant

I recently traveled in Southern Italy, its native environment, and was amazed by the amount of it. Just another resource that nature offers man and he still hasn't grasped how to live with it instead of fight against it. The Italians don't seem to have much use for it, since the stands of it seem to be growing best in neglected areas. Since it has made the jump to the New World, there is really no turning back and eradicating it. Americans are going to have to learn to live with it and make use of it. However, it is backwards thinking to plan on growing it near a paper plant; the paper plant should be built next to the wash, creek bed, or seasonal river that it has invaded.

When life give you weeds, learn to make paper from it.

[tabatha]

3. As long as they turn all of it into paper - and then start

on the other invaders in CA, and there are plenty.

[htuttle]

4. Making paper from weed is a better idea

Lots of fiber, and tends to improve the soil due to the long taproot it sinks.

Hemp paper is very durable too.

[hunter]

6. Please, no, not here in America.

This stuff is horribly invasive. What rare wetlands have managed to escape overt human destruction often succumb to invasions of of this noxious weed.

http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/ag/nox_weeds.htm

It almost makes you look at Monsanto Roundup in a positive light...