Waterproof Books

Ant sent in a bit about new Water proof books. From the article "The new dunkable books are made not from trees, but from plastic resins and inorganic fibers. Melcher Media, a New York-based publisher, is promoting books that are manufactured using a technology it calls "Durabooks." The books' pages don't absorb water, and they stretch instead of tearing. Other companies make waterproof books with standard wood-based paper that is heavily laminated in the printing process."

Comments

Plastic books are endlessly recycleable

[Logic Bomb]

Sadly, the Wired article totally misses the real point of plastic polymer-based books: the material can endlessly be turned into new books without any loss of material quality. Typically, "recycled" paper is "downcycled"; each time it gets remade it becomes more off-color, less usefully absorbent of ink, etc. With these plastic books, using either a chemical catalyst (which means the chemical is not wasted but recovered and useable again) or an extremely hot water bath (hotter than the tub at home), the plastic can be reliquidized, the ink separated, and a brand-new book created without harvesting new materials. This is extremely eco-efficient. Not to mention that the finished product, as Wired notes (sigh), is far more durable than the traditional paper format.

About 7 months ago I did a book review for Slashdot of Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart. I believe it was the first commercially released book in this format by Melcher. (First sentence of the book: "This book is not a tree.")