Where would we be without paper? We’d have nothing to read, the packaging industry would be a very different beast and what would we doodle on?

We all need paper, we all love paper, but the team here at NOA suspects the average person takes it for granted.

So, in honour of paper, here are some little known facts about what the Cambridge Dictionary defines as “thin, flat material made from crushed wood or cloth, used for writing, printing, or drawing on”.

A little tribute to paper

1. The digital revolution was predicted to lessen the popularity of paper. It hasn’t – demand for paper is expected to double before 2030
2. When Johnny Carson wrongly suggested in 1973 in one of his Tonight Show monologues that a shortage of toilet paper was likely, there was panic buying in the US
3. During the Second World War, the Japanese army used square sheets of handmade paper to create balloon bombs designed to cross the Pacific and explode randomly over America
4. Dodie Smith, best known for her book One Hundred and One Dalmatians, wrote: “Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper”.
5. It’s a myth that you can’t fold paper more than seven times (because it gets increasingly thicker). In 2012, a groups of students from Massachusetts folded a single sheet 13 times.
6. There was a short-lived fashion in the Sixties for paper dresses. The V&A in London has a collection on display
7. Cellulose, which is derived from virgin wood pulp, like that used to make kraft paper, is used as a filler in processed meat – more about this in a previous blog
8. Paper was invented in around 100BC in China, during the Han Dynasty
9. There’s a house in Massachusetts made entirely of newspaper, built in 1922 and still standing. Even the furniture is made out of paper – clearly, this is one the wolf couldn’t blow down with a huff and a puff!
10. The farthest flight by a paper aircraft is 69.14 meters (226 feet 10 inches), a record achieved by Americans Joe Ayoob and John M. Collins in 2012

Planes, houses, air balloons – our research has shown that paper is even more versatile than we thought!

At NOA we specialise in conducting research into trends in the packaging industry. If you have some specific research you need to undertake, or would like to know more about a NOA report, please get in touch with the team.