|
Bhatia says shredding is not a foolproof exercise, for
you can reassemble shredded material. He is not
exaggerating. In 1979, while Iranian revolutionaries were
storming the American embassy in Tehran, US diplomats
frantically stuffed thousands of secret documents into
shredders. However, over the next few months, the Iranians
painstakingly put together the shredded papers and got a
clear picture of US diplomatic manouevres in the Middle
East. The Iranians later handed the papers to Cold War
rival, the Soviet Union. Bhatia assures that such an
incident is unlikely to be repeated. “There is no way to
reinstate what the Decopier has removed,” he says.
Shredding is also a costly exercise. BusinessWeek estimates that shredder sales reached $280 million in 2004. Depending on their size, shredders sell from $30 to $12,000. Decopiers start at $5,000, Bhatia says. Currently, the machines can clean 60 pages in a minute.
|
|
Eventually, promises Bhatia, a single sheet should be copied and decopied hundreds of times. His invention also decopies highlighter, magic marker, and ink and pencil marks. He says the environmentally safe chemicals used actually strengthen the paper after each treatment.
Bhatia, who has an MS from New Delhi, received his Ph D in chemistry from the University of Liege in Belgium and his MBA from Suffolk University, Boston. You can call him a polymath: besides being an inventor (he holds seven major patents), he is an entrepreneur, author, consultant, professor and community leader.
Through a 25-year career, he has co-developed or invented many products in common use today: Glue Stic, unique convention/seminar name badges, mailing labels, laser/copier labels, binding systems and electro-sensitive paper. He has led new product launch teams for Dennison with IBM and Gillette, and his efforts have led to commercial sales in hundreds of millions of dollars. He has started a variety of companies in printing, packaging, software, recycling and inks.
The inventor says after standalone Decopiers, the next step is enabling existing photocopy machines to erase as well. Such bundling would, he feels, make the new machines an irresistible value-added package for companies and government agencies.
While his product is getting plenty of attention there
are some who doubt the practicality of the Decopier. Paper
is still pretty cheap. But Bhatia counters: “There is
not only a great environmental advantage here, it also
saves money - you limit your purchase of paper, you also
cut down the transportation costs.”
So get ready for some new terminology spinning out from
offices and homes. After “xerox it”, it won’t be
long before we have “decopy it”. And for those kids
who don’t have dogs and can’t peddle the excuse at
school that the dog ate my homework, here’s a brand new
line: “I accidentally decopied it”.
|
