Taiwan firm to make wheat, rice stalk paper: media

A leading Taiwanese paper company has developed a technique to make paper from wheat and rice stalks, a report said Sunday.

Yuen Foong Yu is to introduce what it says is "revolutionary" technology to its plant in Yangzhou, in China's eastern Jiangsu province, in the second half of 2011, the Economic Daily News said on its website.

The technology is considered environmentally friendly as it uses materials which have long been thrown away and fewer trees will be cut down, the conglomerate's chairman Ho Shou-chuan was cited as saying.

The normal wood pulp manufacturing process uses 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of lumber to make 20 kilograms of paper, but the new technology can turn the same quantity of stalk pulp into four times as much paper, the report said.

"The new manufacturing process will be more energy saving and cause less carbon dioxide," Ho said.