PAPER FROM BAMBOO

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1913, Page 12

PAPER FROM BAMBOO

i FACTORY ESTABLISHED IN JAPAN. Scottish engineers havo perfected plans lor tho manufacture of paper, on a largo scale, from bamboo. On a site near Kagi (Japan) a factory has been installed with every requisite to deal in the first place with 300 tons of pulp per month, but with room for any development. In this case the pulp will be treated in Formosa, and shipped in rolls or sheets to the paper mills at Kobe; just in the same way as the wood pulp of Norway, Sweden, Russia, anfl Finland is shipped to t.he United Kingdom to feed thp British paper mills. It is hoped that in the Far East bamboo pulp will enable Eastern mills to compete with the British and American imported paper of tho finer qualities. The process o£ manufacture from bamboo is a. inoro expensive one than that from wood. It is thought that experiments may cheapen tho process, and flic supply of tho cane is practically inexhaustible. Moreover, the bamboo is a plant that can readily be cultivated. If any particular species is considered the best for paper making purposes it can easily bo grown in any quantity. Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania all have forests of it. For paper making, the ca.ne is cut up into small pieces, of ono or two inches, then boiled with sulphate of lime, bleached by electricity, washed, machine rolled, and pressed into tissue form, and dried !>y steam.