Recycling

First of all, there would be barely any trees if people didn't recycle because let's face it, nobody abides by the rule of plant more trees for every tree you cut down!
 When paper is recycled the ink has to be removed from the paper. They do this by pulping it together and then putting it through a number of washes with all sorts of different chemicals in it called surfactants.
 A single piece of paper can be recycled up to 7 times depending on the fibres because eventually it becomes too short to be recycled again.

 Before food is recycled it's sorted because clean paper is required. So different types of paper are used for different paper products. For example, paper that has been contaminated with food probably contains bacteria which would increase the risk of spreading this bacteria around the process.

----> This is part of the logo for recycling and also an easy way to remember what recycling is all about. Below this picture is the symbol for recycling and it is found all over the place but mainly on bins.

What Trees Make Paper?

Paper can be made from every type of tree there is. The paper is only made by taking the pulpwood (more commonly known as tree pulp) from the tree in chips from the bark.

There are trees that are most commonly used in papermaking and they are both hardwood and softwood timber. Softwood trees include the likes of American chestnut, royal paulownia and cottonwood. Hardwood trees include the likes of spruce, fir, pine, yew and cedar.

It is known that around 17 trees will make about a ton of writing or printing paper. This is obviously only an estimate because it all depends on the size and the age of the tree.



Paper also comes from plants. It is the same as trees. The same fibres comes from plants and its taken the same way except without having to get through the bark.

The Use of Paper

 Paper has many different uses. It is used all around the world for lots of different things. These ideas came about after people wanted to expand on the idea of making paper just to write on. As the years went on different technology and materials were used to create different types of paper but with a little twist. These things include things like tissue/toilet paper, paper mache, sticky notes and cardboard.

When printing was discovered, that is when newspapers were  made for peoples entertainment  and also things like test papers  were used in school.

These ideas spread all over the world and soon paper was hugely common so there was no shortage. Nowadays, paper is used every day of the week and we just take it for granted that it's there. It is used everyday in schools and even at home when people write notes or reminder sticky notes. It is used in offices too.

Once the usual rectangular sheet of paper was used people started to print lines on these sheets. This meant that you could keep the writing on the page straight. After this idea was brought in someone decided to expand on this and they made squared paper. This is used in schools all over the world now, mainly for the subject of Mathematics.

How To Make Paper

Paper making can be tricky or quite simple depending on the materials you have.
 To make paper, fibres are separated from the papyrus plant into strips and these strips are soaked in water to soften them. This is usually done in Refiners.
 To make the sheets, the fibre strips are then drained on a wire mesh surface and now the solid fibre remaining is commonly known as "web". After you make the web, there is then the pressing process which includes two rollers with pressure between them. The web is put through the rollers and this removes another 20% of moisture on top of the water removed during the draining process.
 The drying process then takes place. 47% of the of the web has dry content now and the remaining moisture is removed by machines that pump out steam at around 120 degrees celsius. After this is done, about 95% of the web is solidified.
When you coat the paper it needs to be smooth so the ink appear on the page so this means that the paper needs three ingredients - Minerals, Binder and Thickeners.
 When paper is made, the sheets are kept in large ware houses with a certain temperature to regulate the paper.
 When paper is being made at home the method is quite the same except instead of the machines they are creative and make do with what they have, eg. for pressing it together some people use teo large pieces of wood or laminate depending on what they have.
And here's a slightly different way of making paper:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/820961/how_to_recycle_paper_homemade_letter_paper/#

Origin of Paper

The Egyptians invented the idea of making paper over 5000 years ago by the Nile river. They got strips of fibre from a marshland grass called cyperous papyrus, pressed them together and left them to dry.

The Chinese experimented with this way of making this fibre and eventually found a way of separating each fibre and from plants. They were mixed together, submerged it in water and let it to dry. This is the fibre that we now use as paper.



• Papyrus (left) is a Latin word and this is where we get the word "paper" from.
• It was what the Egyptians used to make things like sandals, mats, writing material (or their kind of paper), ropes etc.
• Papyrus is composed of 57% cellulose, 27% lignin, 9% minerals and 7% water.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Zoe. This is my first blog ever so bare with me on this! I am doing my blog on the geography of paper around the world and the origin of paper. I decided to do my blog on this because not only will i tell all you guys about the geography of paper i will also learn a lot about the topic myself. I will be posting once a week so wish me luck!