In 1985, the Wall Street Journal had a quote from an unnamed Xerox executive to the effect that “we’ll have a paperless office when we have a paperless bathroom.” Well, paperless bathrooms are here, but offices still use a lot of paper.

In a bid to reduce that, Xerox has come up with self-erasing reusable paper. I’m not a member of IFTF, so I don’t have access to the full article, but it does sound interesting.

And, as I so often do here, I can point out that this sort of thing has long been part of science fiction. I don’t recall which ones, but several stories have included mention of paper that’s printed on demand and tossed into a recycler when done with, from which it’s quickly erased and sent back to the printer. One specifically mentioned a newspaper that, when dropped into a recycler, was destined to be re-used for tomorrow’s news — literally the next day.

I just hope no one tries to do the same sort of thing for bathroom paper. I’d like a little more distance between myself and used toilet tissue, thanks. 😉