Paper makers

Before you begin

• Set up your workspace with newspapers or an old tablecloth to soak up any spilled water.
• You’ll need a screen to make your paper – for younger groups, plastic cross stitch screens work well. You could also use a window screen, some fine wire mesh, or even a flat kitchen strainer.

Reuse and recycle

1. The person leading the activity should ask if anyone knows about rubbish and recycling. Does anyone already reuse or recycle at home or at school?
2. Everyone should chat about why rubbish is bad for the environment. Why is recycling so important?
3. The person leading the activity should help everyone understand that recycling, using fewer things, and reusing items reduces the negative effect that people have on the planet.

You could explain that recycling items stops them ending up as litter that hurts wildlife – it also reduces how much rubbish we send to landfill sites. Materials such as plastic don’t break down over time – if people don’t recycle them, they’ll be in nature forever. Making new packaging uses energy and chemicals that damage the environment.

Make some paper

1. Everyone should collect some scrap paper and sort it into piles by colour.
2. Next, everyone should choose a colour. It works best to use half white and half coloured paper, so everyone should collect some coloured scrap paper and some white scrap paper. They’ll need at least three sheets of paper.
3. Everyone should tear their paper into small strips. They should continue tearing the paper up until it’s in tiny pieces.
4. Everyone should put the torn up paper into a large container and add enough water to cover it.
5. Now everyone should rub the pieces of paper together to make a pulp – it should feel a bit like porridge.
6. When everything’s all mixed up together, an adult should add the paper mush to a blender and blend for about 10 to 15 seconds.

You might need to add a little more water, so don’t fill the blender full of the paper mixture. You might need to do several batches in the blender instead of adding it all at once – it depends on how much pulp you have.

7. Everyone should pour the blended pulp back into a large container or tray.
8. Now it’s time to make a new sheet of paper. Everyone should take the screen and dip it in the pulp, then they should shake the screen to spread the pulp evenly and lift it out of the container.

If you’re adding any decorations like leaves, add them to your screen before you dip it.

9. Everyone should drain as much water as they can from the new sheet of paper. They could wipe their hand gently underneath to get rid of extra water, and they could try squeezing it with their hands too.
10. Everyone should leave their paper somewhere safe to air dry.

This usually takes a few days, but you can hang the screens after a couple of hours to save space.

11. Once the paper is dry, carefully peel it off the screen. Now it’s ready to use!

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