In the previous post we saw how paper is the outcome of various ingredients put together in a complicated process that starts in a very far place: the forest.

The first characteristic that is taken into consideration when talking about paper is its weight, but before finding out how heavy it is, we should worry about what is inside it starting from the type of wood.

Paper can be separated into two categories, one made out of short fibres (eucalyptus)  and the other of long fibres (coniferous).

In simple terms, short fibres form paper with a homogeneous surface, which is easy to print but lacking a structure. Having less consistency means that this paper is less suitable to make shopping bags.

On the other hand, paper with long fibres is more resistant due to the fact that it has an enhanced structure.

 The best option is to use a type of paper that includes both of these two groups: paper with long fibres which guarantees optimum resistance, with an addition of a part of short fibres allowing great outcomes during the printing process.

This is exactly the type of paper that we want to produce our shopping bags!

The main types of paper are:

White Kraft

Very resistant paper, opaque with excellent ink absorption. Perfect to print lines of colour, while images become less defined.

Coated paper

This is Kraft paper with a smooth, coated side created using kaolin. It’s more fragile and flexible of the kraft paper but once printed, the colours are vibrant which makes it appropriate to print images.

Recycled paper

This type of paper comes from reusing paper instead of using cellulose. It can either be in Havana or White.

It is considered very similar to Kraft Paper although it is more fragile. In addition, it’s possible to notice small features of recycled materials in the paper.

How are these used in the production of shopping bags?

We will explain this in the next post.