Did you know that you can give your old, crumpled papers a second life? Yes, that pile of school handouts, receipts, and junk mail can become shiny new sheets with just a little recycling magic. Turning paper into paper is not only environmentally friendly but also pretty cool once you understand how it works.
Look for old-school handouts or not needed unnecessary paper around the house. After collection, the paper goes through a process called pulping.
You rip the paper into scraps then dump it all in a bucket of water. Let it sit until it turns mushy then start blending it all.
Take the paper out of the blender and put it in a strainer so the excess water comes out.
You then take the paper and dump it in a new bucket of water where it mixes with the water, making it look like clouded water.
Next comes the refining process, where you first make your screen from paper-sized picture frames(2 of them) found in the dollar store and mesh, like an old window screen —> the finer the mesh, the smoother the paper.
You staple the mesh in one picture frame and leave the other normal.
Put the normal frame on top of the mesh frame and dump it into the cloudy liquid. You’ll see pulp come out.
Remove the normal frame and use the mesh pulp-filled frame to tilt it so the pulp surface is on a piece of cloth.
Sponge out a lot of the excess water, then take out the mesh frame —> will see the pulp paper shape transfer to the cloth
Give it time to dry then peel out of the cloth. Repeat
You could use your new pieces of paper and make it into a notebook or journal, and use it anywhere where paper is involved.
Sure, you could just not do all this and buy new paper but think of this process as a practice to get out of your comfort zone and take some time to do something good for the environment. This is a great friend group activity too. Here’s the exact video I followed to do it myself if you’re a watch-not-read kind of person —>
Written by Umme Rokshana from MEDILOQUY