How many times can a piece of paper be recycled?
The answer from Paper recycling: How many times can wood fiber be reused as paper, cardboard, or newsprint? - Slate Magazine:
Five or six times, on average. At a recycling plant, paper is heated and chopped into tiny bits to make a pulp. During that process, each of the long fibers that characterize virgin paper has an approximately 20 percent chance of being cut into a strand that’s too small to be useful to paper makers. (Short strands of wood fiber make extremely weak paper, and are suitable for newsprint or other applications in which quality is less important.) In theory, a strand could survive the pulping process unscathed for 20, 30, or 100 rounds of recycling, but the odds suggest that a paper fiber only has about five lives.
More here.
T’is the season!
10 Stylish and Sustainable Ways to Wrap Gifts from our friends at Treehugger.
Carla Peters from Wonderable exhibited her adorable collection of Fair Trade pendant lamps, that are constructed by artisans using recycled waste paper collected from Vietnamese printing companies.
More: Inhabitat
Pia Wüstenberg showcases pieces from her Processed Paper project, a series of products made of recycled paper. She rolls and twists waste paper into a raw material, then experiments with processes and applications.…
Pieces at Dezeen Platform include pendant lamps and a folding table where the two wide legs are actually integrated vases.
Literary jewels by Littlefly:
“Jeremy May has captured the beauty of paper via a unique laminating process. Littlefly paper jewellery is made by laminating hundreds sheets of paper together, then carefully finishing to a high gloss. The paper is selected and carefully removed from a book, and the jewellery re-inserted in the excavated space.”
via LittleFly
Here’s a magazine insert from VW South Africa that embodies its green message—for the automaker’s eco-friendly BlueMotion technology—by including a pre-paid mailing label you can use to send the magazine to a recycling plant. “Reduce your impact wherever you can,” says the copy line.
My first thought here was: Is mailing stuff to the recycling center really an efficient use of resources? But upon watching the video at the link below, I gather that in this South African market, public recycling bins are rare, while public mailboxes are widespread — so on some level this notion converts mailboxes into de-facto recycling bins (at least in part).
I still suspect that this isn’t the most efficient way to keep magazines out of the garbage, but it’s a clever approach to the current situation as it stands.
(via VW’s Green Print Ad Includes Pre-Paid Mailing Label to Recycle Magazine | Adweek)
Paper pencils by Droog
‘The pencils are made of paper from used magazines and newspapers, by rolling paper on the carbon core. In the production process as little glue as possible is used while maintaining the desired quality. Every pencil is unique and handmade in a social workshop in the Netherlands.’
The pencils are part of the UP series by Droog
Via Droog
I’d totally wear this.
(via Katies Rose Cottage)
Note: Unconsumption caveat on using books as raw material. Also: Find some previous posts on new uses for old books here.
![The Pulpop MP3 speaker, designed by Balance Wu and Chin Yang, is made from recycled paper pulp.
(via Gizmag)
[Thanks, Estelle H.!]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5te2uSuhE1qzv12bo1_400.jpg)
The Pulpop MP3 speaker, designed by Balance Wu and Chin Yang, is made from recycled paper pulp.
(via Gizmag)
[Thanks, Estelle H.!]
When the University of Iowa Libraries retired its decades-old physical card catalog in 2004, librarians and library staff hoped to “find as many creative uses as possible for the salvaged card catalog cards and generate a sense of community among those who love the card catalog.” They offered cards to artists and students, among other people, who responded by crafting the 3” x 5” cards into works of art.
Pictured, from the cARTalog digital collection: Matt Pollard’s flip book, Gregory Galloway’s collage, and Sandy Brandes’s illustrated piece.
More: cARTalog - Iowa Digital Library
Other libraries, such as University of South Carolina’s, have commemorated their beloved, yet obsolete card catalogs in creative ways.
See also:
Paper bag origami
Made by Ilvy Jacobs, mentioned previously on Unconsumption here, whose site provides a diagram showing fold marks (but not a tutorial, unfortunately). Spotted on Pinterest here.
