Paper - The End of the Road, or Dawn of a New Era, PaperCon 2010 Conference

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The challenges facing the paper industry in terms of cost and paper demand are discussed. The need to reduce and control costs is clear and there are opportunities to do this using traditional papermaking ideas. However, any cost optimisation program should not be carried out without considering impacts and possible disadvantages for end users. This is particularly important now as printers are becoming very sensitive to poor performing papers on their presses. As cost saving programs have had a limited impact on returning the industry to a secure financial footing it is important to consider other ways to maintain paper as a viable technological support for media exchange. One way to do this is to use innovation processes to take advantage of new technologies in a practical and efficient way. This should enable the generation of cost effective commodity papers with high performance and also enable paper to become a part of the new age of media exchange.