woo! research!

ok.... its about time i got off my fat backside and finally started researching about my experiment... –.–

so.... one of the first questions that needed answering was:

How is paper made?

well.... i seriously didnt know how paper was actually MADE. i mean, i just knew it was something like trees ––> some funky machines ––> paper. so what can i say?

so i did some research.

Paper is used by processing the cellulose fibres that are found in most trees. No specific tree must be used to make paper; hardwood, softwood, bamboo, cotton, sugar cane waste, and many other different materials are used to create paper.

There are two ways of processing the wood to retrieve the cellulose fibres: mechanically, and chemically. Mechanical processing is about twice as efficient as chemical processing in terms of energy and waste, but chemicals do a better job at separating the fibres from the lignin (the stuff thats not wanted) and other organic compounds. In order to separate the materials, the wood must first be made into pulp.

If mechanically done, the material is finely chopped or ground up, and sometimes steam or some chemicals are used to help. The pulp that is made via this method, however, is not very good quality, and usually this pulp is used to make newspapers, packaging, or anything that doesnt need high quality paper. Because this pulp is rather low quality, medium-grade pulp is sometimes mixed in, so the resulting paper is not so bad quality.

Chemical pulping, also known as the "kraft" process, involves chemicals, heat and pressure to get rid of the lignin. This results in 90-95% of the lignin and unwanted materials being removed, and leaves better quality pulp.

Sooooooo.... after this, the paper might be bleached, to make whiter paper. THEN, lots of water is added to the pulp, and this mixture is sprayed onto a moving mesh screen in a few layers. The mesh is usually HUGE, so there is a lot of paper. The mat then goes through a couple of rollers to squeeze out the water and compress the paper. Infrared dryers might also be used to speed up the drying process.

Now, there is an absolutely MASSIVE roll of paper, so all there is to do is to cut it up, and send it of to the packaging factories to package it and send it out to the shops.

*** i just realised that i didnt need to go into such detail..... O_O ***

For recycled paper, the fibres in the paper are recycled, although with each re-processing, the quality of the paper gets lower, so the fibres in the paper can only be recycled about 3-6 times before it gets absolutely horrible.

Source: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2231/how-is-paper-made

FUN FACTS!! :D

...got your attention, didnt i?

• 1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
• 1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
• A pallet of copier paper contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton. Therefore:
• 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses 0.6 trees
• 1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets
• 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly!)
• 1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper (used for magazines like National Geographic and many others) uses a little more than 15 trees (15.36)
• 1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogs) uses nearly 8 trees (7.68)

Source: http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml

That should've been interesting. Maybe.

OK, thats enough. but i'll be back! i promise. :D