Digital Electronics to be Manufactured Using Wood Fiber?

 

A compilation published earlier this month by The Green Optimistic, Timișoara, Romania, highlighting seven eco-friendly computer concepts that might tilt the scale next time you go shopping for a new working station, ranked the "Laptop from recycled paper" in their top spot. 

These wood fiber based housings for electronics, essentially e-paper products, are still conceptual, but the potential they hold is great. The exciting part is that not only are the big computer companies competing here, but independent enthusiastic designers are participating as well, setting examples, encouraging, and paving the way to greener computing. 

Using wood fiber, these electronics will hopefully make computing fully recyclable, renewable, and compostable with "paper" housing used instead of plastic or metals that we know usually end up filling landfills for generations and beyond. Beyond sustainability offerings, for consumers, this type of concept also offers the potential of lighter weight, and possibly more. 

In November 2014, a digital smartwatch from Sony Corp., Tokyo, Japan, called the "paper watch" was also featured on BBC News, London, U.K, as a product of future interest. Unlike other concepts, it allowed ambient light to be reflected onto the wood cellulose based surface, resulting in an astounding battery life of nearly half of a year.