Nitty Gritty: Making Paper from...well... Paper.

11 years worth of school work... oh what treasures might be hiding inside!?

There has been a project weighing on my mind for quite some time now... let's not discuss for how long because I am sure it has been floating around, lost in the abyss, since before Christmas...

Moving on.

I had recently found a medium sized RubberMaid tub in my closet that was about 150 lbs and filled to the brim with binders, spiral notebooks, and homework from the last 11 years of school. Don't ask me why I kept it all, I just did. I have no explanation. Looking back I think, "Why did I keep 8th grade homework for so long? Why did I keep it at all? What was I thinking lugging this around to three different states, to 10 different homes?" I don't know. I can't explain it. Anyway.... I went through all the paper and binders and books and pulled the important pieces out.

Awards from high school newspaper. Yeah... I rock.

Ughhh... floppy disks? Oh dear.

Note to self: Must find computer that reads floppies.

Articles I had written for the high school news paper. Poetry for a creative writing class. Track stats from freshman year... etc. I put all that aside for a scrap book and wrote the rest off to be recycled at a later date...apparently a much later date as it is 4 months later and TAH-DAH!!!! It's still here in our house. Progress is great. Then I started a class at SWIHA. A class called Optimum Health and Sustainability, instructed by Urban Farmer: Greg Peterson. And what I learned (among many many other things) was that while recycling is a great idea compared to just tossing everything in the garbage, it was still awfully wasteful. You see, there are these two other pieces to that loop we all learned about in elementary school. Reduce and Reuse. *Lightbulb* It all makes sense, really. Reduce your consumption of materials by reusing a lot of what we already have. Glass pasta sauce jars can be used to store food instead of plastic tupperware and instead of tossing or recycling them. Worn out clothes can be turned into rags for around the house. And so on.

The class requires, as an assignment, to come up with a plan for sustainability. A plan of action, if you will. Now, as it stands, I already feel like Beau and I do a pretty good job at being as environmentally friendly as we can... we shop at farmer's markets and buy organic. We have stopped buying chemical cleaners, we have a garden that grows some seasonal veggies for us, we recycle more than we throw away, etc. But then there was this little blue tub of a monster in our bedroom, just sitting there saying "Do something with me for crying out loud!!!" And so I did.

I decided it was time to finally tackle that tub of paper, binders, and spiral notebooks once and for all. (Side note, I'm a freaking crazy person!) What I ended up doing for my assignment was make new paper out of my old papers. Not only am I reducing my consumption by creating new paper, I am also reusing the old paper I had saved up for 11 years thus minimizing what ended up in recycling or the trash. Not only that, but I decided I would put some seeds in the paper too so that once it was done being used it could be planted, biodegrade naturally and quickly, and grow beautiful herbs, flowers, or vegetables. Now we have come full circle.... and I think it is awesome.

Here is how I did it and what you will need to do to try it out:

Project One: Creating the Paper Mold

Purchase a few 8x11in frames from good will (look, reusing again!)
Purchase a roll of fiberglass or metal window screen.
Purchase or find an 8x11in piece of hard plastic that fits in the frame.
Cut out a piece of screen the size of the frame and staple it to the frame.

Homemade frames (see note at the end.)
Before the screens.

After the screens.

Project Two: Making the Paper

Step One.

Collect your paper. Be sure to avoid Magazine and newspaper print. Use minimal amounts, or none at all.

Step Two...it's oddly cleansing.... shredding early college notes.

I now have a rubbermaid tub full of shredded paper...
and I only shredded about 100 pieces. Oy.

Shred the paper into strips or about 1x1 inch pieces of paper.

Paper soup.

Take a few handfuls of paper and soak them in water over night.

Margaritas anyone?

Mmmmmm slop.

Take about a cup of the soaked paper and place into a blender. Add about 3 cups of WARM water to the blender. Blend until you reach an oatmeal-like consistency. (Note: Batch will be very liquidy. That's a good thing.) Place blended mixture into a large container. Repeat process until all soaked paper is gone.

Dip the frame (without the plastic) into the mixture of oatmeal-like paper and sift just above the surface of the water as if you were panning for gold. (Note: This will spread the wet paper mixture evenly over the screen of the frame)

Spreading it out, time to strain it.

Lift the frame out of the water and place the plastic piece on top of the paper mixture in the frame. (Add seeds at this point if you plan on doing so. You can also add dried herbs or pressed flowers/leaves if you would like.) Begin to press on the plastic to push the water out of the paper and through the screen.

Once the paper mixture begins to separate from the screen you should be able to lift (gently) the "paper" out of the frame and place it on a table to dry. Pat with a sponge to soak up any access water if necessary. Repeat this process until complete.

Finished product... a light blue. Pretty. :)

Let pieces of paper dry for 24 hours each side. Place each piece between two towels and iron on "warm" to help straighten the pieces out.

Viola! You have recycled paper! Enjoy!

Please note- my photos are a little different than the instructions because I am enacting the "Do as I say, not as I do" rule. I chose to bite off more than I could chew this first time around and made frames from scratch that were 3x3ft and used one screened frame on top of the other to push the water out. It worked well, but took a few attempts to get it right. Overall, I'm pretty stoked about how it all turned out.

Here are some additional photos from the experiment: