Shredded notes in the process of transformation to fine paper at Kumarappa National Handmade Paper Institute in Jaipur. It may look alchemy working in reverse order. Nevertheless it is alchemy turning waste into wealth once again. Soiled currency notes undergo metamorphosis in Jaipur's Kumarappa National Handmade Paper Institute (KNHPI) to be born again as fine recycled paper. And the joy is when the same offices of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which issue the currency notes, receive them back as file covers, envelopes, paper bags and other stationery items. Management of soiled paper currency has always been a mammoth problem with all 19 branches of RBI in the country, which generate as much as 10000 tonnes of shredded currency a year in the form of briquettes. And prior to the arrival of the briquette-making machine from Germany, RBI used to burn the old and soiled currency notes under strict supervision. The whole exercise used to cost lot of time, energy and had serious adverse impact on environment. Jaipur has a tradition of handmade paper going back to the period of the former royalty but it was the KNHPI, an autonomous body under Khadi and Village Industries Commission, which developed the technology to process currency waste paper briquettes into quality handmade paper and board. "By employing the technology developed by us the shredded currency waste now could be easily recycled. There is quality raw material in soiled currency for the handmade paper industry. The paper produced is of high quality and the cost is much less,' R.K.Jain, director, KNHPI, observes. The earlier the disposal of shredded currency used to be a tedious task in which he punched notes and bits had to be burnt in incinerators within RBI premises. The process used to lead to production of toxic ash, gases and harmful pollutants and consumption of lot of fuel. The recycling of rupee into paper is a tempting proposition for handmade paper industry as currency notes are produced from good quality cellulosic raw material such as cotton and hemp. "The cellulosic raw material employed in making currency notes have good strength properties because of the morphological nature of the fibre and good fibre length,' points out Dr.Jain. The shredded currency is a better source of cellulosic raw material containing higher qualities of alpha celluloses, which could be converted into pulp with minimum requirement of pulping chemicals. "The higher quantities of ash and other tacky materials, inks and pigments in shredded currency require specific treatment conditions which were optimized at the institute,' Dr.Jain explains. Kumarappa Institute is the first in Asia to develop such a technology which has been patented since. KNHPI, located near the Sanganer airport, is turning currency back into paper only as a pilot project and wants others to do it so that a problem in currency (!) is solved to everybody's benefit. "It is very cost effective and the availability of raw material is ensured.' "The Jaipur centre of RBI alone produces 40 tonnes of currency waste a month and like in other centres, they have a disposal problem,' observes, A.K.Sharma, Deputy director, KNHPI. KNHPI has identified Rajasthan, Orissa, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh for using available currency waste from the local RBI centres.