Hello, everyone! This is Romal. In today’s blog, I will be going over the process that I have used in the past to make recycled paper. Although there are many ways to go about creating recycled paper, the steps that I will be discussing in this blog post will be one of the simpler processes that has been effective for me in the past. I have described each step in great detail, but the entire process (excluding drying) should not take more than 20 minutes.
To begin, I will be going over the materials that you need to make the recycled paper. The items that you will need include pieces of scrap paper (you can substitute this with used brown bags or newspapers), a blender, a mesh bag, a sponge, a tray, a cup, and a towel/paper-towel. Although a deckle (a type of wooden frame with mesh in the middle) is commonly used for papermaking and is a helpful tool if you want the paper to have clean edges, please note that you can still create recycled paper without it.
The first step of the papermaking process is to make the pulp out of the recycled paper. In order to do this, rip up the scrap paper, or whatever substitute you are using, into small pieces. The pieces do not need to be completely shredded, but instead should simply be cut so that they can fit into the blender. Once the pieces of scrap paper are in the blender, use a cup to add some water. The amount of water used is up to you, but it is important to note that the less water you use, the thicker the paper will become. At this point, you should blend up the scrap pieces with the water until it forms a pulp-like consistency. When this happens, you can choose to add other decorative elements into the pulp such as food coloring or dried flowers. I would strongly recommend against using glitter since the miniscule glitter pieces often make their way into marine ecosystems and become microplastic. If you would like to learn more about the harmful effects of glitter on the environment, there is an informative National Geographic article called, “To Save the Oceans, Should You Give Up Glitter?”(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/11/glitter-plastics-ocean-pollution-environment-spd/)
After creating your pulp in the blender, set it aside for a moment while you set up your tray. Place the mesh bag on the bottom of your tray. Next, pour the pulp that was made earlier into the tray. You can smooth out the pulp with your hands to ensure that it is smooth out evenly. Then, take your towel or paper-towel and place it gently on top of the paper pulp. Use a sponge on top of the towel to remove the excess water from the pulp. After removing all the water that can be soaked up by the sponge, hold both ends of the mesh bag and lift the bag, along with the paper, out of the tray. Next, flip the mesh bag over so that the bag is on the top and the recycled paper is on the bottom. Slowly, peel away the mesh bag so that just the recycled paper remains. You can allow the paper to airdry or you can use a fan. The recycled paper may have a tendency to curl at the ends, so to forestall this issue, you can place the recycled paper under a large stack of books.
Once the paper is dry, it is ready to be used for origami and can be easily folded just like fresh paper. You can use the paper for guilt-free origami crafts.
Let me know your thoughts on this quick and simple process to create origami. Join the discussion!
