We know, we know... isn't all paper erasable if you use a pencil? That's true, of course, but the innovation in Xerox's new erasable paper is that messages printed onto the paper will fade off of the sheet in 24 hours, allowing the paper to be re-used. Perfect for memos or temporary notices, but not so perfect in a few other situations...
Xerox Erasable Paper: Green Idea = Good Idea?
Xerox's erasable paper is impregnated with chemicals that darken when exposed to a specific wavelength of light, allowing documents to be “printed” on without ever actually laying down ink or toner. The effect fades with time though, so the dark portions on printed pages disappear automatically within 16 to 24 hours of printing. The pages can also be exposed to heat to clear immediately.
The idea comes from the statistic that almost 40 percent of paper printed in an office is discarded within a day.
But even though their idea comes from a good place, we think this would lead to plenty of office mishaps. If an unknowing coworker leaves some info on your desk while you're out sick or on vacay, it means bye bye memo. If a mistaken intern accidentally prints your press releases on erasable paper, it means your messages will disappear before they make it to the post. If that paper makes it on top of a hot laptop, it means your message fades well before the 16-hour mark.
Temporary messages are best left to email, we think.
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This would work wonders for our office's fax confirmation printouts. If we need to save a confirmation we scan it to our computers and the printouts get recycled.
All those papers in the recycle bin could be dropped into a reuse tray.
view bramasoleiowa's profile
I would definitely use this for manuscripts. Certain types of copy editing really need to be done by hand. I frequently find myself printing out a 40 page document to go over for a final revision. Usually there are few dozen comments quickly incorporated into the digital document and then into the trash with all of those pages. Other times I just need to see a figure in print to be certain that it looks proper when printed. If I find problems with the printed outcome, which I usually do, it will be printed out many times while I do the fine tuning of the image. I print, I look, I toss. I do as much editing digitally as I can, but it gets to a stage in the process where you just have to see it on paper. It is so painful to waste all that paper!
view yolio's profile
Seriously? This is from like 2 years ago.
view wunami's profile