No trees harmed to make new Lake County booklet

Pick up the Lake County Forest Preserve District's new Hike Lake County Travel Log, and you'll immediately notice something unusual about the pocket-sized booklet.

The mustard-yellow cover and interior pages feel smooth, almost silky -- not at all like traditional paper.

That's because the booklet's maps, fitness tips, charts and other features aren't printed on traditional paper.

The entire 23-page document is printed with vegetable-based inks on TerraSkin, a tree-free material made from ground calcium carbonate, a chemical compound often found as stone.

"It's nice to say we didn't take any trees down to make these maps," forest board President Bonnie Thomson Carter said. "It just complements everything that we try to do."

The publication is part of the district's year-old "Printing Green" initiative, said spokeswoman Sue Hawkins, who developed the project.

TerraSkin is manufactured by a New York company called Design & Source Productions. Although TerraSkin is proprietary, other products like it exist, said Nicole Smith, the firm's environmental director.

The stone used to create TerraSkin comes from industrial waste, such as scraps from marble countertops, Smith said. It's the same compound found in many antacids and chalk.

Unlike traditional paper processing, water isn't used to make TerraSkin, so it doesn't create water pollution. Rather, high temperatures are used to melt and dissolve the ingredients.

Bleach isn't needed, either. The material is naturally white, Smith said.

Once made, TerraSkin is hard to tear and water-resistant.

"You could throw it under your sink. It'll be fine," Smith said.

The forest district booklets will naturally degrade to powder if left exposed to sunlight and moisture in nature, officials boasted. They typically break down in six to nine months, Smith said.

The district printed 5,500 copies of the travel log. Each cost about 63 cents to make, just 13 cents more than if officials would have used traditional recycled paper, Hawkins said.

They're available at every forest preserve, the district office, Lake Forest Hospital and area REI stores.

You can also call the district office at (847) 367-6640 to order a copy, or you can print one on your own paper through the district's Web site, www.lcfpd.org.