Being in the paper industry for 40 years, we have heard it all. Springfield believe in honesty and that’s why we think it’s time to clear things up – our team have listed the top 4 examples of the worst advice they’ve heard about paper.
1) “Your printer needs 80gsm paper”
People seem to believe that after feeling a piece of paper, they have the skill to say it is a low grammage due to it not feeling like a very good quality. But what I would like to know is since when can your fingers weigh pieces of paper? What you are actually feeling is the stiffness. This is determined by the thickness, not the weight. It’s the same with your printer. There are no scales on board – it performs according to the paper’s stiffness.
Because papers differ in the type of wood fibre used and the manufacturing process, you can end up with papers that weigh the same but have different thicknesses. Hence the difference in quality. The great thing about good-quality 70 or 75gsm paper is that it has been made with superior wood fibre. It ends up as thick or even thicker than standard 80gsm paper, so it runs perfectly! Don’t ever let anyone tell you the nonsense again that you must use 80gsm. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Remember! – It’s the thickness that counts, not the weight! To read more about this topic, click here
2) “It will work better if you use the same brand paper as the printer”
If you have a branded printer, your work will come out much better if it is printed on the brand’s paper… FALSE. Your machines are not made to detect a certain brand of paper for it to run smoothly – it won’t know the difference whether it’s Xerox or Envirocopy. This is often used to hook you in to a contract by the supplier so they can get more of your business. Don’t be pressurised in to doing this – test it out and see what happens when you try other papers in your printers.
3) “Paper production is ruining the forests”
“European Forests have been growing by over 1,500 football pitches every day” The growth of forests in Europe has been the result of afforestation (e.g. planting and seedling of trees on land that was not previously forested) and through natural expansion of forests such as on abandoned land. Today forests amount to about 180 million ha making Europe one of the most forest-rich regions in the world with more than 40% of land covered by forests. (European Environment Agency, 2015) It can be claimed that European forests, between 2005 and 2015, grew by a total area of 44,160 km2. For more myths & facts, see Two Sides
4) “Recycled paper is environmentally friendly”
Unfortunately this is a common misnomer, actually the process for making recycled paper isn’t an environmentally friendly process which contradicts the public belief but this is due to the fact that using recycled content for producing a white copier sheet again demands harsh chemicals and resources to de-ink and make recovered fibres white again (and even then with not 100% satisfactory results). Furthermore, the paper quality of a recycled sheet is much inferior to that of a virgin sheet as the fibres become shorter each time they’re recovered and on average can only be re-used between 4 and 8 times – hence, we need fresh fibres to keep the recycling process going and to maintain the paper cycle – virgin fibre from well-managed forests—a renewable and abundant resource—is necessary in achieving real sustainability and meeting the ever-rising demand for paper. Read more.
Oct 10, 2017