Paper from bear food.

     Just like most koala bears, I am looking forward to some eucalyptus tomorrow.   As a printer, one sheet I always love to work with is a sheet made from eucalyptus tree fibers.   We buy a brand made in Portugal where they are producing a great sheet of paper from these little bush sized trees.  Instead of raising pine trees for seven to fifteen years to make paper, eucalyptus is ready in five years.   It also is a very long fiber, which makes for great printing and folding.  I understand that a few of the big paper mills here in the USA are experimenting with making this kind of paper down south right now.   I hope they get going with this project as I prefer to buy a U.S.A. made product when possible.

Another advantage to the long fiber is that when the scrap is recycled, it blends in with other shorter fibers to extend the whole recycle cycle.  I've never tried eating a sheet because, who wants to look like a Koala?

This paper has been around for a few years now, and is well worth asking your printer about.  It is very white (97) and opaque, as well as one of the cheaper sheets around.  For anyone out there familiar with such things...this paper compares with Cougar for quality and run ability.  For those not familiar with paper...Cougar is not made from cougars!  So please bear with me here...the paper from Portugal is not destroying koala food!   Any koala bears seen in the bush in Portugal are on vacation!  Hopefully they won't drink any port wine while there.   Can you imagine a koala with a red nose?  Come on now, koala bears have a very funny noses.

Speaking of eating...I got to wondering about McDonalds the other day.  I was half way through a number twelve Angus Burger, and lov'en it, when I thought, I wonder when Mc'yD's started.   Thanks to Google, I found the original one was started in 1948.  No wonder I didn't remember that!  They now have over 31,000 stores around the world.   A new store opens every 4 hours.  Our humble little print shop opened in 1956 and today we have exactly one store world wide.  Here is one final thought for this post...in printing do not sacrifice quality for speed.  Allowing your printer more time almost always results in a better job.  If you ask your printer to print on a eucalyptus paper, you will be pleased with the results.  After all 80,000 Koalas can't be wrong!