How paper is made is a question that unfortunately we almost never ask ourselves.First, because of the interesting history behind it, and then because of the current manufacturing process, extremely polluting and terrible for the environment.
Paper is an object so present in our lives that we rarely take it into account.Here we offer you some information about its history and its elaboration.
Paper do you really know how it is done?
Since in ancient Egypt they began recording symbols on various surfaces, including the papyrus , humanity has not stopped writing and using scrolls and papers to do it.
As you certainly know, papyrus was widely used to make different objects, but the most important was the writing support , whose elaboration was Royal monopoly .From the word papyrus comes the modern paper .
In the European Middle Ages what was used was the parchment , skins of lamb or goat tanned and treated to write with ink on them, but it was a very expensive process.
Incredibly, they already made paper in China in the second century BC, and for that they used silk residues, rice straw, hemp and cotton.The inventor of this technology so important for humanity was the eunuch Cai Lun , who was advisor to Emperor He of the Eastern Han dynasty, is already credited with the large-scale paper production (keep in mind that by this time, China was a society bureaucratic enough to generate a large number of documents).
Until the year 610, this technology was exclusive to China, in the rest of the world paper was not known; this year he arrives in Japan and already in the middle of 700 Central Asia he dominated the art of making paper, art that later happened to the Arabs, and of these, in his centuries of domination of Spain, to the West, in the 10th century.In France , for example, they used linen to make paper since the twelfth century.
There was a combination of things that allowed the emergence of the book : the first, of course, the invention of the printing, but she alone was not enough.In the fourteenth century the shirt began to be used massively, which was the generally white underwear that was worn before the suits.Thanks to this, there was enough old cloth, or rags, to make paper much more economically, and so the book came out, an affordable product for a larger sector of the population.What does the shirt have to do with paper? Well, the fabric was made of linen, jute or cotton, all elements with vegetable fibers.
And you know what is the process to make the paper we all know? Well, first you should know that it can come from three sources: of trees -hardwoods such as oak or maple are used primarily to make writing paper, and soft wood for paper of packaging and cartons&ndash of leftovers , which would be wastes such as sawdust-usually to make cardboard, disposable products or wrapping paper-and of recycled paper , which is collected after use.
Let's see, we explain the procedure: when the trees are cut down, they are milled in the lumberyards until there are bits left, everything is put in large tanks with water and chemicals and heated until the pulp is obtained, until cellulose is separated from the rest of the materials. Cellulose is the basis of paper, a paste of plant fibers .
Then adhere other materials that They give strength and shine, such as starch or clay, but it is done before the pulp is lime again and dry.To give it the white color we all know, the pulp is bleached with bleach or chlorine, and ultimately with hydrogen peroxide (hydrogen peroxide) in very high concentrations, which are absolutely polluting for the environment .
The question is that all this water is poured into rivers, producing an endless pollution circuit.And also, approximately only 15% of the trees used to make paper are planted.in what is called “tree farms” (they are cut down and planted again), the rest comes from forests where they don't plant again ; therefore, the deforestation caused by papermaking is very high .
One of the things we can do is recycle paper and contribute to companies that make it, or buy books, agendas and notebooks made with this type of paper.
Another thing is to print documents consciously, that is, if you really need the printed page, or scan them and have them in the cloud.each one can contribute with his grain of sand to take care of the only home that we humans have: our dear Earth.
If you have been interested in the subject, read what oil is made of.
Images: zeze57, Thomas Favre-Bulle, Ashley Van Haeften, Raul Lieberwir th, Paul Saad, Jason Comely, Yeling, John Keane, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
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