Cork Paper and its Uses.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 25, Issue 40, 26 May 1914, Page 2

Cork Paper and its Uses.

Enormous quantities of cork are used annually for making tips on cigarettes. For this purpose the cork is converter! into very thin sheets which constitutes what is known ns cork paper. These sheets are exceedingly thin, and come in the market 4£ inches in width and 6,7, 8,9, and 10 inches in length. A package of about 250 sheets is scarcely an inch thick. It is estimated that approximately £.100,000 worth of cork is converted into cork paper every year, and almost all of this is used for making tips on cigarettes. The thin cork is pasted on long sheets of paper, which are passed between rollers and automatically covered with paste, while girls with deft lingers lay on the cork and smooth it down as the paper passes along. After this, the sheets are passed through the cutting machines, in which they are divided into 8 strips J-inch wide and wound on reels for use in the automatic cigarette tippers. Each of these machines has a capacity of 10,000 sheets of cork paper a day. The total number of sheets used in the world is about 100,000,000, or about a quarter billion square feet. The cigarette tipping machines have a capacity of about 60,000 cigarettes daily. The cost of the finished tips to the cigarette manufacturer is from to lOd. a thousand.