What are the different types of paper

What are the different types of paper

Paper comes in different types, with different sizes, weights, thickness and finishes. Getting the right types of paper for your office printing needs may be a little complicated. However, grasping the basics of paper types will help you make the right choices while stocking up on your office supplies. Office documents serve different purposes and as such, there are different types of paper suitable for each need. Read on to find out the common types of paper and a brief description of each. Many catalogues and brochures are made from paper.

Bond Paper

This paper is more durable and is commonly used in electronic printing. The basic size is 17 inches by 22 inches and weight range is between 16 and 36 pounds. The size may also vary slightly. It is commonly used to make letterheads, envelops, invoices or most documents printed using laser and inkjet printers.

Bristol Paper

Also known as Bristol board, this paper is a heavyweight, thick and uncoated paper. The basic size is 22.5 inches by 28.5 inches with a 0.006 inch thickness. Its strength makes it perfect for use in making book covers, tickets, brochures, file folders, among others.

What are the different types of paper

Recycled Paper

If you are looking to reduce your environmental impact, then using recycled paper may be one step in fulfilling this goal. It is important to note that recycled paper may be slightly expensive than the standard “virgin paper.” This is because it is generally produced in low quantities and hence, per unit production cost may be high. That said, the paper can be used for printing most office documents such as memos and reports.

Index Card

Index card comes in three sizes, 3 inches by 5 inches, 4 inches by 6 inches and 5 inches by 8 inches; and three weights: 90, 110, and 140 pounds. The paper is usually thin and stiff, and is perfect for making magazine inserts, postcards, and index cards. It is budget-friendly and holds ink well, making it ideal for most print projects that require durable paper.

Tag Paper

This type of paper is tough and durable, making it ideal for frequent handling. It is commonly used in making print hand-tags that can be found on consumer goods.

Text Paper

What are the different types of paperThese are uncoated and can be used to satisfy a variety of office requirements such as printing office stationery, letterheads or envelops. They are economical, and with their multiple uses in the office, they make a good choice for normal office use.

Coated Paper

These types of paper usually come with a clay coating to create a gloss on the paper surface. The coating gives a shining effect and is better in holding ink as compare to uncoated paper. There are two major types of coated papers: gloss coated paper and matt-coated paper. Gloss coated paper is more shiny and hence, can be used in making brochures and flyers. On the other hand, matt-coated paper is not shiny as it is coated with matt instead of gloss. This eliminates the glare that comes from shiny paper, making it ideal for making reports or leaflets. In between gloss and matt, there is silk coated paper with a silky and smooth coating. It has multiple uses, including making magazines and books.

The Paper Experts – paper manufacturing and recycling

The Paper Experts - paper manufacturing and recycling

Since around the time of the ancient Egyptians, paper has been used as a form of written communication. Back then, it was made from reeds and called papyrus. In the second century, the Chinese had invented paper out of tree bark and fish netting. Paper mills did not exist in Europe until 1150 in Jativa, Spain and then it was paper was being made throughout Europe by the end of the 16th century.

Paper Materials and Paper Making Process

The Paper Experts - paper manufacturing and recyclingToday, wood is purposely harvested for half of the material for use in paper today and the rest of the material comes from recycled cloth, recycled newspapers and vegetable matter. Paper experts create fine-grade paper for money and security certificates, which are made from cotton and linen, which are cleaned, cut and boiled before they are used. There are four steps to the paper manufacturing process: Pulping, beating, making the paper and beating.

To make pulp, logs are stripped of their bark and then sent to grinders, which breaks the wood into pulp by pressing it between revolving slabs. There is a chemical process created by paper experts where it is boiled at a high pressure and the wood chips are later bleached and then later sent to a paper plant. Later, the pulp is pounded and squeezed and various chemicals are added. The paper needs to be sized otherwise it will be too absorbent for ink. For the papermaking process, the wood pulp is fed into a device called the Fourdrinier machine, which was invented in 1799 in France, but was later improved upon and patented by Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier in England. The last step of the process is when the paper is finally dried by passing through metal rollers and then is later cut to the desired size.

The Paper Experts - paper manufacturing and recycling

Paper Recycling

Unfortunately, paper experts have found that only about 65% of the paper used in the United States is recycled. What people don’t know is that for every ton of paper recycled is 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space that can be used for something else. By recycling that same ton of paper, we save nearly 475 gallons of oil, nearly 20 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. For recycling paper, there are seven steps which must be followed.

The Paper Experts - paper manufacturing and recyclingPaper is taken to a recycling center where other recyclable material is sifted from the paper the paper is then sorted into different grades, such as mixed paper, newspaper, pup substitutes and deinked paper that is of high grade. The paper is then stored in bales after sorting and is then transferred to a mill for processing once the mill needs it. The mill shreds the paper and the heats it and is then pressed to remove any adhesives. After pressing, it is spun to clean it and to remove ink and then it is sent to heated rollers that dry the paper and the paper is then put onto paper rolls to be reused.

If recycling just one ton of paper can save that much room in a landfill, imagine how much room can be saved if we recycled 100% of paper instead of throwing it out. Imagine how much room would be saved if we learned how to recycle more materials and we were more committed to recycling as much as we could instead of throwing a plastic bottle in the trash just because it was more convenient.

Go Green by Going Paperless

Go Green by Going Paperless

Advances in technology have brought a new era where paper use is no longer a necessity in the office. If you chose to go paperless, there are technologies that can be used in place of paper and yield the same results. It is no longer necessary to sign papers using ink to make that contract binding, or to give credibility to an invoice. Hardware such as tablets can be used to create and manipulate electronic documents and ensure that they reach the necessary parties.

Benefits

The thousands of tons of waste paper generated each year can be avoided by adopting the paperless initiative. Additionally, going green will not only save you on costs associated with paper use, but also help in saving the environment. So many trees can be saved and at the same time, the greenhouse gas emissions from paper industries can be reduced. Manual filing will also be an issue of the past, and valuable time used to search for documents will be saved. Converting documents into searchable text increases efficiency as the document can be searched and edited by the click of a button. Conducting business online also increases efficiency in reaching your clients. You can bill your clients through electronic invoicing, and save on postage and stamping costs.

Go Green by Going Paperless

So, What Are The Alternatives?

There are people who are still stuck at using paper and either do not know of alternatives, or they are just scared of going paperless. Well, there are hoards of alternatives that can be used in place of paper. Think about the hardware technologies mentioned earlier. With your tablet PC or smartphone, you can create, update and send invoices to your clients with real time updates. Sending that invoice or any electronic document will require the use of software technologies such as electronic mail or electronic fax. Online fax services are especially helpful in distributing contracts used in law or by real estate agents.

Digital Signature Services

Some documents need to be signed for them to hold legal weight. There are software services that can be used to imprint digital signatures using your smartphone of tablet. For documents that need multiple signatures, these can be embedded on the document and shared through the cloud.

Storage of Documents

Go Green by Going PaperlessGoing green will eliminate manual filing of documents. In place of that, you are spoilt of choice with the different paperless filing systems to help in managing your documents. Different filing systems have different features, benefits, and costs, and your choice will depend on your business needs. Some examples include PDFelement for Business to edit and store your PDF and scanned documents or CrashPlan easily back-up your documents.

Bottom Line

Most if not all normal business activities, can be done digitally. Sharing of information within and outside the office can be done online through the use of email. Creating an internal memo and sharing it through email will ensure that your employees receive any updates or instructions without wasting time and paper printing the same. In an era where people are increasingly becoming environmentally conscious, going paperless can be a source of competitive advantage for your business.

How is Paper Recycled?

recycling-paper-process

Paper recycling involves mixing the already used paper with chemicals and water to break it down. The paper is cut into smaller pieces then super-heated. Heating breaks it into strands of cellulose, which is a type of organic plant material. The resulting material which is the mixture of water chopped paper and chemicals is called pulp or slurry.

Paper Recycling

paper recycling process involves major steps, which involves, collection of the waste paper up to the end product, that is a clean paper. These processes include, collection of waste paper, transportation, sorting, and processing it into usable raw material. The raw material which is the slurry is used in making of new paper.

Paper Collection

Already used papers are collected from waste bins either in the cities or dump sites, they are then deposited in big containers known as recycling containers. At this stage collected papers are put into a single main container.

Transporting the paper

Once all the waste has been collected from the damp sites and pilled in a major container, they are transported to the paper recycling plant. transportation is done by a collection van or track which move the containers to the paper recycling plant.

Sorting the Paper For Recycling

Once the waste paper reaches the recycling paper plant, the waste paper is sorted into different categories; newspapers, magazine paper, computer paper, news prints, card board. Sorting of paper is important to be able to separate waste paper and treat it differently during the paper recycling stages, this is done so as to produce different types of recycled paper products.

Turning the Waste Paper into Usable Raw Material

This is a major step in the paper recycling process. During this stage the waste paper undergoes a calculated procedure. Which include several major processes:

Making Slurry or Pulp

The pulping process includes the mixing of chemicals and water. For you to get the right slurry mixture, the waste paper is chopped using a machine to chop the waste paper into fine pieces this is done before adding water and the appropriate chemicals. The mixture of water, chemical and chopped waste paper is super-heated. This is done to break it into paper into fibres fast. the mixture eventually turn into a mushy mix; this mixture is referred to as a slurry or pulp.

Cleaning and Screening of the Pulp

This process is done to remove any form of uncleanness from the pulp. The pulp is forced through some screens. the screens have different hole sizes and shapes. The pulp is passed through the screens to get rid of contaminants such as globe of glue and plastics bits that might be present in the slurry. In case the slurry has more contaminants such as staples. The slurry has to be turned around in a cone shaped cylinders.

In the cylinders the heavy contaminators are thrown out of the cylinders using centripetal force. the light contaminators are moved to the Centre of the cone and are gotten rid from the slurry.

Deinking the Paper Fibre

After the steps of cleaning and screening, deinking has to be done to the paper fibre. This involves removing the ink from paper fibres of the slurry. All the sticky material mostly known as adhesives, glue residues at this stage they are also separated. Deinking is achieved through mechanical action combinations. Mainly it involves (shredding and the addition of chemicals). small and light ink particles are removed using water while the larger and heavier ink particles are gotten rid using air bubbles in a chemical process known as flotation.

Refining, colour stripping and bleaching

After the paper fibres in the form of slurry is di-inked, the slurry undergoes refining. In the refining stage, the paper pulp is beaten until the fibres swell. The beating is also responsible for separating fibres into individual fibres. It’s important to facilitate new paper production from separated fibres. In case colouring is required; colour stripping chemicals are added at this stage too to get rid of the dyes from the paper. During the process of colouring, brown papers are obtained. When the objective is to produce white recycled paper, the pulp is usually bleached using oxygen, chlorine dioxide, or hydrogen peroxide which usually makes them brighter or white.

New Paper Making

This is usually the final stage during the process of paper recycling. The cleaned paper slurry is then ready to be used in paper production of new paper. At this stage, the pulp is usually mixed with virgin wood fibres – this is done to provide the new paper with smoothness and strength. Paper fibres can be used alone at times meaning it’s not necessary to add the virgin fibre

During this step, the paper pulp is mixed with hot water and appropriate chemicals, hot water percentage in the mixture is far higher than the paper fibres and chemicals. The mixture is fed to a head box used in paper making machine. The pulp is sprayed in a continuous jet into a large wire mesh- like a screen. The screen moves at a very high speed in the machine. Once the water starts draining out, the recycled paper fibres start bonding together forming a watery sheet. The sheet moves through a continuous felt cover press rollers. The rollers compress out more water from the paper pulp sheet and the sheet eventually comes out as a freshly manufactured paper.

Dissolved Water Flotation

The water squeezed out is cleaned for reusing purposes within the plant. this is important to conserve water.

Waste Disposal

The usable material that is a waste product in the paper recycling process includes the plastics, filler fibres, ink and staple materials and is referred to as sludge. Sludge is usually buried in a landfill, or sometimes it’s burned to create energy at the paper mill and sometimes local farmers use it as fertiliser.

 

How is Paper Manufactured?

paper-manufacturing

Paper, the evergreen in the Worlds necessities for as long as we can remember. A medium of knowledge, poetry, hidden conversations carrying the most of human recorded history. We use it in our everyday lives more than almost anything else. It is an everlasting human invention that is widely used even today alongside developed technologies and computers we use, still the first thing we reach out for when trying to make a quick note on something or just waste time and doodle.

How is our paper manufactured? Although we know about Egyptians and papyrus, first ever recorded evidence of paper manufacturing as we know it today comes from ancient China some 2000 years ago. Although very little has changed over the years in paper manufacturing, modern technologies describe somewhat different process.

From Plantations to Mills

Although new technologies in manufacturing are being discovered and used one might think we’ve started using different kinds of paper manufacturing material. But, would you believe it? Your everyday paper is still produced and comes from same old raw material as it ever did – trees. Even the manufacturing process itself is pretty much the same, except today it is being modernised and we’ve managed to recycle old used paper in the process of manufacturing new.

However, mostly used material for precious cellulose are still tree trunks. Modern day paper manufacturers grow their own paper tree plantations. Most common trees for paper manufacturing these days are still pretty much the same as always and these are usually pine, birch, eucalyptus and conifer.

The process of paper manufacturing starts at these plantations or woods with trees being felled and transported to factories. Trees arrive at mills where they are finely cut and debarked. Debarked logs are then cut into small pieces/wood chips. Bark isn’t usually used in the paper making process, instead it’s being used as a fuel/energy resource.

Next step in the line is so called chemical pulping. Small wood pieces are being cooked, thus burning unnecessary lignin and other organic materials that cannot be used in the process of paper manufacturing. Once the wood is cooked it undergoes mechanical pulping which blends wood chips into paper fibre. At this point fibres resemble a soaking mush of paper, but still we’re not there just yet. After that the bleaching of fibres starts. Bleaching is what makes our paper appear in familiar white colour. Fibres of are then washed once again and dried forming a watery substance called pulp that is ready to get converted into paper. Usually some other ingredients are added to the fibre such as glue or even cotton fibre.

The watery mass is afterwards lined onto large machines where process of drying begins leaving fibres strongly bind resulting in a rough sheet of yet unprocessed paper. This is where our so much needed every day writing resource first comes to life still in form of watery web sheets, fragile and prone to tearing. These sheets are then sent through a series of mechanical processes including series of drying cylinders with high pressure that further dry out the mass and press the sheets all together leaving clean, brand new slits of paper. These slits are then pushed further onto machine called calendar. This

Machine ensures that paper is evenly thick and ready for the next phase of our paper manufacturing process- coating and colouring. Paper is then pushed once more, through series of cylinders where it is being sprayed with colour and coating film giving paper its final shine.

Finally, we come to the finishing process where paper is being rolled onto reels. These massive reels of paper are then fed to the cutting machine that cuts paper into an even white sheets of papery goodness being ready to be transported to warehouses. In those warehouses pallets and roles of paper sheets are then carefully wrapped up.

Paper manufacturing process finishes in paper ready to start its sole purpose journey. Journey ultimately leading it to us. Helping us make imprint of our everyday situations, memories and existence on this earth, but often not giving it a single thought about the hard and dreary process our omnipresent friend went through to be there just when we need it.

Specialty Papers

photographic paper

There are lots of different specialty papers in use today. Photographic papers qualify as specialty papers, given that they are fairly streamlined in terms of their purpose. Specialty papers are common for photographers and a lot of other artists. The light-sensitive chemical formula used to coat the papers reacts with the chemicals used for processing photographs producing some very high quality prints.

For brochure, catalogue and other printed material you can employ a fulfilment house to distribute your paper catalogues.

A lot of photographers swear that the quality of the picture is better for the people who use photographic papers and who create the prints themselves. The photographic papers are layered with a sort of chemical that is sensitive to light, and this is what allows the photographic papers to work as well as they do for so many people.

Artists will use certain types of paper for sketches, certain types for watercolours, and other types of paper for almost all of the other types of media that people will usually imagine. Even different pencils require different types of paper in many cases.

Certain professionals use specialty papers. Graphing paper is common for engineers and architects, for instance, even in a world where they do a lot of their work digitally. Other professionals are going to have their own special paper that is made in order to conform to specific requirements, and few other people will use these niche pieces of paper.

Paper Finishes

paper supplies

There are lots of different types of paper finishes within the coated variety rather than the un-coated variety. Un-coated papers are typically the ones that people write things on as opposed to the ones that are used in printing. Coating and finishes are often going to be the same thing and they are often going to be grouped in the same way, which is going to make a difference for a lot of people.

Coated papers come in many different varieties, including silks, mattes, glosses, and watermarked papers.

Gloss coating is one of the most popular of all of the different types of coating. However, some people have a problem with the glare from the gloss coating. Paper like this will typically be very soft and shiny, and this might be a problem for some applications.

Matte finishes are similar compared to gloss finishes, but they are rougher than what you would get with gloss finishes.

Lots of people like the silk finish because of how it feels to the touch. Silk finishes will tend to add a touch of class, style, and luxury to a lot of different printed publications.

Recycled paper can have coating and finishes or no coating and no finishes. Recycled paper is made from the wood pulp of previously used paper, and a lot of people will use it in order to conserve the natural resources that are used in this category. Recycled paper often seems similar to its counterparts, although it might have a somewhat thinner or rougher look.

Vellum these days typically refers to the synthetic parchment and not the stuff that is actually made from the skins of cows, which would have been the case historically. Paper vellum is an alternative to the vellum of old. It is synthetic and it is made from plasticised cotton as opposed to the skin of calves. Vellum paper is parchment, and it tends to be used for things like graduation certificates and a lot of other really formal documents.

Most high-quality writing paper will be bond paper, since bond paper is typically going to be a lot thicker than some of the other forms of paper that people can purchase today.

The paper finishes are all really important and they can have a huge effect on the actual use of paper, because they have such a huge effect on the texture and the quality of the paper in general.

Paper Weights and Materials

paper weights

Paper is made from wood fibre originally from sawmills, recycled cloth, vegetable matter, and recycled newspaper. Different types of cellulose fibres from different types of wood are used in the production of paper in many cases.

While a lot of people go out of their way to make sure that they use recycled paper and this is certainly a good thing, it should be noted that many of the materials that are used to make paper in the first place are recycled. The paper that is made entirely from pure wood pulp is called virgin paper, and it is rarer than a lot of people think. A lot of paper is made from discarded paper material or recycled boards.

Paper Weights

Paper weight is measured in grams – the grammage is a measure of the thickness of the paper. For instance, paper that might have a weight at the 140lb index level will have a grammage of 255 gsm. Paper that has a higher index level can actually be thinner in some cases than paper that has a lower index level. A higher grammage level is going to mean that the paper type in question is going to be heavier and thicker.

Navigation