Epson develops world’s first compact paper recyling system

Epson, the Japanese electronics company, has found a way to recycle paper without the need for large recycling facilities, and without the need for water.

The current prototype will take up a good amount of space at 8.5 feet wide, 3.9 feet deep, and almost six feet tall.

You can find out more details about the Epson PaperLab at the link below, the company will be showing it off at the Tokyo Big Sight event at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center from the 10th to 12th of December.

Epson has a new product model, and it’s so common sense we wonder why no one else has tried to make what the company is calling the world’s first dry-process, in-office paper production system.

Traditionally, paper recycling processes require shipping discarded paper materials to specified paper manufacturing facilities. “With PaperLab, Epson aims to give new value to paper and stimulate recycling”, the company says in a press statement. The machine developed for the goal does not need water for the entire process. Ordinarily it takes about a cup of water to make a single A4 sheet of paper. Tipping wastepaper into the machine and hitting the start button kicks off a recycling process that Epson claims can produce its first fresh sheet within about three minutes and from there it spits out around 14 A4 sheets per minute, or around 6,720 sheets in an eight-hour day.

Users can produce sheets of A4 or A3 office paper and even paper for business cards thanks to forming technology that allows them to control the density, thickness and size of paper.

As a result of its Dry Fiber Technology, Epson says that the PaperLab won’t require plumbing, which should make installation easier, though it will still require a small amount of water to create humidity inside the machine. At that point, “a variety of different binders can be added” to increase its strength or alter the color; the paper is then formed into whatever kind you’ve specified.

Additionally, because the machine breaks paper down into paper fibers, confidential documents can be destroyed onsite rather than the task being outsourced to contractors to shred securely. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson, the Epson Group comprises almost 72,000 employees in 93 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental burdens.