Although the world is becoming more digitized every day there are still thousands of paper documents generated every minute worldwide, which of course means that an awful lot of trees are still being chopped down to make the paper they are printed on. Many people do make an effort to recycle these days but even that act in itself can actually damage the delicate environmental balance. The perfect answer would be of course to remove all traces of ink from an unwanted document and restore the paper to its original pristine condition so that it can be used all over again. Where is Harry Potter when you need him?

Well actually it seems like we don’t. Two scientists from the University of Cambridge, Thomas Counsell and Julian Allwood, have recently published findings of their research into various print removal techniques. The idea is by no means a new one, as the authors acknowledge, but the ink removal technique they detail in their report may prove to be one of the most successful yet.

For the purposes of their work Counsell and Allwood used only a single toner and paper combination. The toner was from a black and white HP printer and the paper that they utilized was ordinary white uncoated Canon copy paper (although it was the wood free variety)

The pair began experimenting with a number of solvent substances and combinations. They discovered that the somewhat unusual combination of dimethylsulphoxide and chloroform, in a 60-40 dilation to be effective, as long as the application of the solution was followed by ultrasound agitation, which loosened the pigment from the paper.

The resulting paper sheets were perfectly viable for reuse, if not as white as they were in their original state.

In their report the researchers suggest that at some point in the near future the techniques may be able to be implemented in a factory setting, or integrated into a office copy machine. The use of chloroform however is a sticking point as it is not the safest of substances to have lying around the office.

There is also a question of sustainability. Since 100ml of the solution was used in the experiments to clear a single sheet of paper it may not be a financially viable solution in many cases.

With that said though the work, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, should be of great interest to environmentalists and indeed anyone who has an interest in finding ways to decrease their carbon footprint.