creative recycling

if you recycle a meter high pile of newspapers you save one 5 meter high pine. mas o menos. of course – trees grow, they are a renewable resource. but it’s better to use them where they are more needed: in construction, for furniture.. or for oxygen production :)

not everybody knows that paper can be made from other tree-free materials (or nontimber raw materials), that the entire industrial production could simply be based on different plants. we don’t have to do it like in the old days (a bit of history HERE), nowadays in different places in the world experiments are carried out involving cereal and rice straw or bagassa (sugar cane pressings) as well as elephant and kangaroo manure (about traditional and alternative fibers more HERE).

aand I saved a glittering joker for the end – paper can be made from stone, aww..: Kampier, TerraSkin, rockstock – stone paper that rocks!

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in our workshop, together with kids we recycle and creatively process paper remains: from the remains of colour paper we get colourful pulp, from printed office paper we get base pulp (which may be dyed later). on the sieve, during paper making, we put successive layers, we create shapes and imprints..

reliefs made from base pulp

from the rest we model spatial forms, 3D birds..

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what’s important: in general chalk paper is not suitable for recycling. so it’s better to avoid shining glossy magazines. well.. it’s generally better to avoid them ;) try not to use paper bleached with chlorine dioxide (ECF method) and if it’s possible choose paper signed with TCF symbol.

whereas, every type of non-chalk industrial paper can be processed and used again 6-7 times. after that cellulose fibers become so short and weak than they can only end up in the toilet. in the form of toilet paper rolls. and it’s just fine.