Fresh Press

Agricultural Fiber Waste Paper

(Photo credit: EcoJustice)

When Steve and I first developed Fresh Press, we had three forms of source fibers in mind (and still do):

• Agricultural Fibers (prairie grasses, corn stover, straw, etc.)
• Agricultural Waste Fibers (corn stover, soy, wheat, etc.)
• Reclaimed wood fiber-based papers from campus recycling

Recently, we read an article on Treehugger describing “12 Simple(ish) Ways to Quickly Reduce  Global Warming Two-Thirds by 2050,” where we became excited about  idea #6:

Ban Agricultural Burning — Burning agricultural land to replenish the soil does indeed do just that. But it also does a number of the atmosphere when done on the scale it currently is. If this was stopped black carbon soot emissions would be reduced by 7% and methane emissions by 1%. 

This is exactly what we hope to do via an incentive program for farmers. We hope to capture small amounts of regional “waste” (in the beginning of our project) from the agriculture industry and turn that into various kinds of paper and packaging. We aim to then create a market for these leftover drying crops that outside of burning to encourage its sales to other paper manufacturers throughout the country. 

It’s a big goal and one we can’t do alone. However, we hope our work can inspire others to continue and improve what we have begun.

Read more about Agricultural Burning at the US EPA.