Closeup on Synthetics

Sustainable alternatives

Though traditional synthetic material can help the sustainability cause by 
using less material, several suppliers are really taking protecting the 
environment to heart with alternative materials that use a resource that many of times goes unnoticed: stone.

Chameleon Packaging, the environmental division of Design & Source Productions Inc. (New York City), has created TerraSkin, a waterproof tree-free paper made of minerals that degrade back into the earth as the powder of stone. The company says that TerraSkin offers strong printing capabilities and requires 20 to 30 percent less ink. The company does not bleach the paper, and it uses a closed-loop production system, so that toxic water is not dumped into the environment. Chameleon also claims that printing inks dry faster on TerraSkin than its synthetic paper counterparts, making the printing process even more efficient.