Paper made from 100% recycled stone?
Language Log 2025-09-17
I'm spending a couple of days at BioTechX2025, which is in Philadelphia this year. And one of the exhibitors is giving away Karst Stone Paper Notebooks, which have a wrapper telling us that
This reminded me of the "100% grated Parmesan cheese" thing:
"'100% Grated Parmesan Cheese'", 9/5/2017 "Parmesan cheese redux", 11/3/2018 "'Made from 100% VERBed X Y'?", 12/29/2023
And of course Wikipedia's Stone Paper entry tells us that
Stone "paper" consists of roughly 80% calcium carbonate, 18% HDPE and 2% proprietary coating.
where HDPE is high-density polyethylene.
Karst's "made from 100% recycled stone" note is less obviously misleading that Kraft's "100% Grated Parmesan Cheese" label, despite the failure to mention HDPE, since it more strongly suggests that the "100%" binds to the adjacent adjective.
And at this point informed consumers may be prone to suspect the syntax and semantics of all "100% VERBed X Y" claims. Or at least they should be…
