RocStar, a stone paper developed by Innov’Blue, offers a soft-touch alternative to paper with strong resistance and waterproof properties.
Made of crushed stone blended with calcium carbonate powder and a polyethylene resin binder (HDPE), rocStar is described as a “value-added” material, whose main ingredient comes from industrial scraps sourced in Taiwan. “Quarries generate a lot of dust so the trick was to invent a process that could ‘vacuum’ up the dust waste and transform it into a material with interesting properties,” explains Camila Amaya-Castro, Founder and CEO of Innov'Blue, the company who developed the mineral paper. With its soft-touch surface, the paper is suited to a number of embellishment techniques: in addition to offset, flexo and digital printing, rocStar can be embossed, folded, hot-stamped and perforated.
The paper comes in two ranges: one that is flexible, comprised of 80% mineral powder and 20% HDPE binder, with a thickness from 100 to 200 mircons; and a thicker offer with 60% powder and 40% HDPE that is between 250 and 400 microns.
While rocStar cannot enter traditional recycling streams as it is free of fibers, its production is said to require 85% less energy than traditional papermaking.
