Paper made from limestone

Paper made from limestone and resin - that's one way of recycling waste.

Limestone quarries and stonemasons are always wondering how to reduce the amount of waste they have to dispose of. One solution might be to turn it into paper. 

A company is making paper in just that way, using 80% powdered CaCO3 (limestone) and 20% resin. The paper produced is particularly smooth and waterproof. We have not found an ink or pencil it will not accept, although gel inks take about as long to dry as on fine coated wood pulp paper. It is hard to tear and burns like plastic. It will, presumably, be long lasting, given its components. Whether it will yellow or not will depend a lot on the resin used. It is a bit expensive - the little notebook pictured against the cover of Natural Stone Specialist magazine here came from Australia but seems to cost about £5 in the UK.

There seems to be some mystery about the process and who makes the paper. On the book it says it is made with Repap and gives a website of www.repap.it, but that does not go anywhere and the Repap company in Finland, which makes products out of recycled paper, says it does not make paper using limestone. A Japanese company called Limex says it has bought the rights to the process, which it is developing, as you can see at https://tb-m.com/en/about/.

The book pictured was supplied by a company called Ogami, which also sells products in the UK. The products can be bought from Amazon (sometimes).