We (Nepali) have been using this material to make lokta paper for a long time now. These papers (Nepali Kaagaz) are used mainly today for official documents.
edit: twic found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40039860 that it's edgeworthia gardneri, which was originally classified as daphne gardneri by the gardner who originally named it
> I dedicate this beautiful genus to Mr. M. P. Edgeworth, Esq., to whom we owe a valuable description of the vegetation and agriculture in the Sikh states in northwestern India (Hooker's Journal of Botany, II. p. 267), and I combine this with the wish to also pay tribute to his famous sister, Miss Maria Edgeworth, who has become dear to all educated people through her writings, which are marked by rare depth and fullness of mind and spirit, as a warm admirer of nature and the natural sciences, with a modest monument.
Now I'm curious about the reason behind its "gardneri" name.
> Edgeworthia Gardneri nob. Tab. I. E. with petiolate, oblong-elliptic leaves, acute on both ends, glabrous above, slightly hairy below, peduncles thickened at the apex, hemispherical capitula, involucre with lanceolate acuminate leaves subequal to the flowers, flowers subvillous-tomentose with yellowish pubescence. Hab. in Nepal, where it was discovered by Mr. Wallich in 1820.
There are too many high-level botanical terms here, I can't understand anything.
Petiolate: Leaves join the stem by a narrow "tail".
oblong-elliptic: Shape of the leaf, self-explanatory, also indicates that the leaf is entire (blade shaped as one continuous structure)
acute on both ends: blade leaf starts and ends in a point (that is short in both cases).
glabrous above: upper surface smooth
slightly hairy below: surface below covered by tiny "bumps" or vesicles to protect from dry or chill conditions (feels hairy to the touch)
Peduncles thickened at the apex: Ambiguous, but that "tail" is more thick in one extreme (probably before to join the leaf blade).
Hemispherical capitula: Flowers "glued together" over a disk, and arranged as a half sphere. Is not exactly like a daisy, but you pick the idea.
involucre with lanceolate acuminate leaves subequal to the flowers:
That "disk" has also spear-shaped bracts (accessory small leaves) that are more or less as long as the flowers are.
Flowers subvillous-tomentose with yellowish pubescence
Flowers in this genus have a strange (and pleasant) plush texture. They are covered by a dense layer of short yellow (or red) hairs. Is very strange the first time that you see it, but also adds a lot of charm and coolness to the species.
you're probably confusing it with the similar-looking oleander, i put daphne (laurel or bay leaves) in my soup. all parts of daphne are supposed to be poisonous but it's not in the same league as oleander
oleander is an unrelated plant, being a rosid rather than an asterid, but in some languages people use the same word for both because they both have thick and leathery dark green glossy lanceolate leaves, usually glabrous, with minute reticulate venation
edit: no, laurel or bay leaves are not daphne, they're laurus or one of several other genera. laurus is also unrelated to daphne, being a magnoliid. i don't know anything about how toxic daphne is. i regret the error, which was due to Δάφνη being the greek word for laurus nobilis, the laurel from which we get bay leaves for seasoning food
Reading this article, I was I itially surprised to read to Japan had to import raw material given their strong paper tradition (shoji , washi, origami, etc.). But then the article states that
> Shrinking rural populations and climate change were driving Japan’s farmers to abandon their labor-intensive plots.
Makes sense to try to conserve this resource somehow.
EDIT. Yup. I can see the article now. That photo is unmistakable. Is a famous Japanese shrub used since a lot of time. The only difference is the new area of culture it seems. Formerly known as E. papyrifera.
Can be cultured in gardens, reduced size, and very nice fragrant blossoms in early spring. Fluffy flowers with the feel of a teddy bear. Needs acid soil.
The photos depict this species[1]. This is the traditional one on Japanese bureaucracy for very important documents so is basically irreplaceable, because historical reasons.
Edgeworthia is a relatively small, relatively slow grower so there are also two species more that provide good quality fibers and could be mixed with that. One is a relative of the mulberry tree and the other a member of the same family that includes Edgeworthia.
[1] EDIT. Selfcorrection. The photos depict an Egdeworthia, but could be other species in the same genus as other have pointed, yep.
> This year, Mr. Sherpa has hired 60 local Nepalis to help him process his harvest and expects to earn eight million Nepali rupees, or $60,000, in profit. (The average annual income in Nepal is about $1,340, according to the World Bank.) Mr. Sherpa hopes to produce 20 of the 140 tons that Nepal will be shipping to Japan. ¶ That’s a majority of the mitsumata needed to print yen ...
suggests that the total available profit is 420 thousand dollars, enough to support 313 nepalis (though perhaps the workers' wages are more than the landowner's profit, i suspect that they are, instead, smaller). the population of nepal is 30.7 million people, so this probably will not be a major new nepali export if it's just for the japanese mint. hopefully the article will make it fashionable among hipsters seeking better materials for their moleskines?
unfortunately the reporter did not think it was important to include the scientific name of the plant, so i guess we're out of luck
it says they're planting it and harvesting the plants after no more than three years so the bark doesn't redden, but looking at the photos in the article, it looks like the hill districts in question aren't very forested? google maps makes it look like there are in fact many forests there: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.9,88.5101152,20665m/data=!3m...
This mean (probably) harvesting the young branches of less than 3 years, but this shrubs should be much older. (Maybe in their native climate they grow faster?).
> hopefully the article will make it fashionable among hipsters seeking better materials for their moleskines?
If that happens we’ll be reading articles about how unfair it is that western consumers are pricing the Nepalese people out of their local products (a la quinoa).
presupposing a global hipster population of 100 million and paper consumption per hipster of one bullet journal per month, weighing perhaps 500 grams, we get 600 thousand tonnes per year of paper consumption, roughly four thousand times the amount the article tells us is being used to print banknotes. this seems like it could employ several hundred thousand people, but probably not nearly enough to run out of land suitable for growing argeli
you can read that stuff if you like i guess. in fact if you really want to read it you can get gpt-4 to generate it today, without having to wait for it to actually happen: http://sprunge.us/REx4gD
Does anyone know how mitsumata got to Japan in the first place.
"Traditional paper" I imagine is something they've had since before the age of European colonization which brought all sorts of trade/exchange. Eg. The national-dish of 'curry' in Japan is a British twist on Indian one, and so you almost inevitably find Beef in it.
it grows wild in china, which is where paper was invented, and which is separated from japan by the east china sea; shanghai is only about 1000km from kyushu. korea, which borders china, is even closer, about 200km: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7650836,121.5784141,6z?entry...
if you count the ryukyu islands as 'japan', ishigaki is only about 100 km from taiwan
Also increasingly recruited into the russian army for use as cannon fodder, you don't hear much fierce invincible Ghurka news about those for some reason.
Sourcing the raw material of bank notes from Nepal? Seems a bit off from an environmental standpoint by hauling materials halfway across the globe from Himalaya.
How about plastic notes? They are durable, recyclable, and because they are money, not likely to end up in our oceans as wastes.
It’s not halfway across the globe. Not even quarter way. Meanwhile, the US one dollar note is made with flax imported from Belgium (also not halfway across the globe, but farther away).
No, they are not flying non-stop from Himalaya as you assume.
I did a rough calculation using [0][1]. Not including the land part, just the sea route, it is 5396 nm [0], roughly 9993 km and that is indeed halfway the globe.
By the way, from Antwerp, Belgium to Boston, MA is 3607 nm, roughly 6680 km, much shorter actually.
Not a native speaker, but this got me thinking: how would you interpret "halfway" in this sentence:
>It’s not halfway across the globe
Equator is 40k km long, so it makes sense getting "halfway" there would be 20k km. But the "half" is of something, and it doesn't sound right that "at the end of the globe" would be the same place you started with. Especially since being "on the other end of the world" means roughly, well, opposite side of the globe.
So I think OP is justified in defining "across the globe" as the "opposite side of the world", and then "halfway across the globe" is "quarter the length of equator away". But maybe I'm overthinking it.
As a native speaker: I think “across” (while understandable from context) is the wrong preposition because to me that would imply a diametric traversal, not circumspect, eg, halfway across would land you in the core of the earth. Half way around is what I would say to describe superficial travel of half the earth’s circumference, landing at the opposite side of the world.
This is a very fair point! Another way they could be given credit is that the radius of the earth (another way to view "halfway across the globe") is 6371km so again the quoted distance would be more than this half.
Thanks for explaining! Yeah.. I was thinking of the maximum direct surface distance when saying "across the globe"... That would be 20k km... and the sea route turns to be about 10K km long from Kolkata to Osaka...
Why not locally sourced? I mean it's very possible flax isn't native to the Americas but it seems wasteful to source something from abroad.
And while 100+ years ago it made sense from a logistics point of view - use hard to find materials to fight counterfeiting - I don't believe that's a valid argument anymore.
This thread is grossly missing the point. OP is writing about a foreign aid program directed at Nepali people.
Nepal is a rocky country, having a large patch of lands unsuitable for farming. People in the rulal area are literally one of the poorest population in the world.
Paper bush ("Mitsumata") grows well in such a rocky soil. This program is essentially an attempt to set up Japan as a longterm buyer of the material, so that the local people can make constant money.
> Why not locally sourced?
Because if Japan sourced the material locally, it just ceased to be a foreign assistance program.
i don't know if it's intended as a foreign aid program, but if it is, it's a foreign aid program whose budget amounts to a single google engineer's salary, so i'd think japan could do better
Lots of Japanese people travel to Nepal to volunteer in schools and clinics and stuff; when living in Japan I knew several different people who'd done that sort of thing. It's like U.S. doctors and contractors doing projects in Central America. Japan is very into building soft power in SEA through development assistance.
It's a difficult low margin crop. Not easy to grow cheaply and it needs to be processed to extract the fibers.
It's been grown in that part of Europe for thousands of years and in the 19th century it was a major industry there. I don't think it's still a major crop in Belgium (too low margin) but the company in question is entrenched now.
Plastic doesn't seem like a good solution, considering that notes are moved, stretched, flexed a lot and endure a lot of friction. Seems like a needless source for more plastic particles shedding into the environment.
You might be surprised to learn that a lot of the world uses polymer banknotes which are siignificantly more durable and last a lot longer than traditional 'paper' based currencies. The are incredibly hard to tear/break and they do not wear out or stretch. We've been using these in Australia since 1996.
Having handled a fair amount of US currency I can say it _feels_ disgusting to handle after a certain amount of wear and often reminds me of a moist tissue. It also doesn't help that visually the notes all look very similar (as opposed to on polymer notes which have significantly different appearances and colours)
I'm aware it's being done already. But I'm not sure it would be a good starting point when designing a new set of notes. Euro banknotes are mostly made from cotton, and a lot of thought and effort is going into reducing the environmental footprint. The most circulated denominations last on average four years, the rest significantly longer I presume. How does that compare to polymer based banknotes?
In Canada they last 8-16 years… polymer notes are unequivocally better. Corruption and inertia is the only reason they are not everywhere. As to plastic pollution, banknotes are already a closed, circular loop and hence you get the miracle properties of plastic without the downside.
I think the concern was with the plastic money shedding micro plastics or threads as it slowly degrades over time, like we're finding other plastic does like our clothing. Not saying enough to take out of circulation, but does it shed any particles during its life?
Does it shed particles? In a world of absolutism yes they would.
I don’t know if there are actually any studies but fyi cotton notes will also have plastic features and a synthetic, uv cured varnish to try and get some extra life (although far less than polymer) so also ’shed’. Banknotes are regularly inspected and worn or damaged notes are pulled - they really are the perfect product for plastic.
By weight though, it's a lot less plastic being put out there. Is it worse than clothing? Maybe not, but I'd continue to be skeptical about it until some studies have been done.
But the solid piece of plastic isn’t shedding, it’s encased in ink and will be removed with set levels of ink wear. The synthetic varnishes, features etc are the same with paper so you’re putting out 4x the amount of ‘at risk’ shedding material due to the longer life of polymer.
Plastic = bad is a disaster for co2 emissions and ironically microplastics since the alternatives are heavier and don’t last as long. Meaning more transport, distribution etc and tires are one of the biggest sources of microplastics.
This doesn't show anyone concerned about polymer money shedding microplastics and it doesn't show any numbers about how much polymer money sheds microplastics.
Not a euphemism. They're made out of polymer. This is pretty direct.
you don't have to accept if you find polymer cups ridiculous
I don't and I don't know why anyone would be upset over that.
You said they aren't called polymer notes, I showed you they are called polymer notes by linking evidence. What else is there? Are you still saying they aren't called that or does it just upset you for some reason? You can hate it but it's still true.
Because there is zero evidence of what you're saying. How much plastic are people surrounded by and how much of that weight is bank notes? How much do they shed? Show some numbers or just use some common sense that this doesn't matter.
If you have 10 bank notes in your wallet, you have 162,285 times as much plastic in your house.
I think most people would have had used some basic common sense that even their trash bags are many times more plastic than the polymer bank notes they use.
Why did you possibly think that anyone should be focused on microplastics from bank notes?
At what point do you go from "just asking questions" to "maybe this is a bizarre thing to focus on" ?
I doubt that. Computing has a greenhouse effect similar to air traffic.
Edit: While true that's maybe not a good argument. Financial processing hardly is the biggest culprit. The worst impact / benefit ratio are probably video and ad distribution.
However, if you think how much Chinese (and similar) goods a $20 or 50€ note buys during its lifetime the impact of shipping the banknote material seems negligible.
Are you sure it is more environmental to keep all the computers, the network and other related infrastructure running (powered on, security updated, etc.) than it is to print and distribute banknotes every so many years and associated costs with that?
Because we already keep all the computers, the network and payment processing anyway.
Like 99% of physical payments are already involves computers anyway, even if it is done with a paper/plastic note.
So it's not "replace notes with computers" but "get rid of notes because computers are there anyway".
Anecdote: I don't have a card linked to Uber, so I pay with a cash or a C2C transfer.
In the last two years if I ask the driver if they prefer cash or C2C they consistently prefer C2C - because it's way less hassle for them and also they often claim they are short on change.
And in the another anecdote I still carry cash on me but I use it only for a taxi rides and a one local smallware shop, so they wouldn't need to pay the processing fee for the 50c things.
