I have a mixed report on Rubicon. On one hand, I applaud its manufacturer,
Fox River, for being the first major U.S. mill to come out with a
commercially available and cost-competitive tree-free paper. The paper is
beautiful and I haven't heard of any problems with its performance.
On the other hand, the Phoenix pulp mill in Thailand that supplies the bamboo
pulp for the paper appears not to have as positive an environmental or
community development record as previously believed. There have been articles
in the Bangkok newspapers (available on the web) for the past couple of years
detailing a number of abuses and I believe that the pulp mill is currently
closed for violations, although that may not be the most up-to-date
information.
ReThink Paper has an editorial about it on their website,
http://www.igc.apc.org/ei/paper/specifiers.html. Activists for tree free
paper are encouraging the paper companies that have been using the Phoenix
pulp to pursue tree free sources in the U.S. instead, where the conditions
can be monitored and the economy will be local.
There are other tree free papers made from U.S. crops such as kenaf that are
available and may be of interest to you. Some papers and sources are listed
on ReThink Paper's website. Their homepage is
http://www.igc.apc.org/ei/paper/rtphome.html.
There are also many high-postconsumer content recycled papers available. For
an article on how to choose between recycled, tree free, and chlorine free
papers, see Conservatree's site, www.conservatree.com.
I hope this is helpful in making your choices,
Susan Kinsella
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Susan Kinsella
Conservatree
Website: www.conservatree.com