Dubai: A young scientist who has made paper from dead palm tree leaves wants authorities in the UAE - the country with the most date palm trees - to adopt his idea.
Twenty-three-year-old college graduate Mustafa Barami made sheets of paper in a university lab in Oman, his home country, a few months ago. He was presenting the idea at the Paperworld Middle East fair in Dubai this week.
Barami said the UAE has 44 million palm trees, out of which one million are burnt as waste every year. "There are environmental issues — unwanted gases like carbon dioxide are released. It also costs lot of money, which goes up in smoke," Barami said.
A kilo of palm leaves can yield 80 sheets of A4-sized paper, used widely to print office documents, the self-styled "paper inventor" added. "I did that with basic tools in the lab. If you use industrial machines, you can do a lot more. The brown leaves can be easily collected; their cellulose quantity is very close to that in wood. We don't have to use green leaves as that can harm the tree." Cellulose is used to make paper and is found in trees, which account for 90 per cent of the world's sources of paper, Barami said.
"Why not use these leaves to make paper instead? It won't be expensive. But someone has to take that decision."
That "someone", Barami added, might be authorities like Dubai Municipality or the UAE Ministry of Environment and Water.
"I've always been concerned about the environment. Everyone is looking for economical benefits at the same time - and that's why I'm here today."
Barami won the silver medal at the International Inventors contest in Kuwait recently, outdoing some 160 other competitors.
DIY paper:
- Leaves are soaked overnight
- Chemicals are added to extract cellulose
- Cellulose is ‘beaten' in a blender
- The paste is spread thin in a frame
- The frame produces a paper sheet when dry
