What is paper made of and how do they recycle it??

Paper is made mainly from the cellulose in wood. Paper can be made using cellulose from sources other than wood. This is the process of making paper:

1) The bark is removed

2) The wood is chipped into small pieces

3) Water and chemicals added and wood chips cooked into pulps

4) Pulp is beaten to break down the fibres

5) Pulp cleaned and bleached to make it white

6) Pulp drained on fine mesh belt

7) Heated rollers drypapers and press fibres together to form a sheet of paper

8) Finished paper is wound onto a reel

The process of recycling paper:

Broadly speaking, the final production process for recycling paper is the same as the process used for paper made from virgin fibres but, as the recovered paper fibres have already been used, they have to be cleaned.

As a first step, recovered paper is sorted and graded then delivered to a paper mill. Having reached the paper mill, it is ‘slushed’ into pulp and large non-fibrous contaminants are removed (for example staples, plastic, glass etc.). The fibres are progressively cleaned and then the pulp is filtered and screened through a number of cycles to make it more suitable for papermaking.

For certain uses (like the production of graphic and hygienic papers) the fibres have to be de-inked.

The pulp is then ready to be made into paper. Depending on the grade of paper being produced, quantities of virgin pulp from sustainable sources may be added. Some papers, such as newsprint and corrugated materials, can be made from 100% recycled paper. Once the paper is used, it can be recycled and the process starts again.

Papermaking uses a natural, renewable resource—trees! The first step in papermaking is harvesting the trees. After the trees are harvested, they are delivered to a paper mill. Paper mills use every part of the tree so nothing is wasted. The bark and roots are burned and used for energy to run the paper mill. The rest of the tree is chopped into small chips for pulping. Pulping is a chemical process that separates the wood fibers from lignin and other wood parts. Pulp is the soft, spongy part of a tree. Lignin is the glue that holds a tree together. If lignin is left in a paper product, the paper turns yellow and brittle when it’s exposed to light. You have probably noticed that newspapers turn yellow very quickly. Lignin is usually left in newsprint, since newspapers are only meant to last a day or so. After pulping, paper is the color of grocery bags. High quality papers are whitened with chlorine bleach and sometimes coated with clays and adhesives to give them a glossy finish.

Recycled paper is made from waste paper, usually mixed with fresh wood pulp. If the paper contains ink, the paper must be deinked. Deinking also removes fillers, clays, and fiber fragments.

Basically, paper is made by chopping tree into small bits, and cooking that with water and bleaching chemicals to get a paste (if one does not use the bleaching, the paper would be light brown -- same color as wood -- this is why boxes have that color, as they use unbleached paste for them). That paste is then drained of water and squeezed into thin sheets and left to dry.

To recycle paper, the first step is to remove the ink, which is done by mulching the paper in water, and bubbles and detergent are added so the ink will float away. Then the clean paste is drained and made into sheets.

Paper is basically dried wood pulp (think of it like wood being processed in a food blender), usually with a bleaching agent added to make it white.

As to recycling, the most common uses I've heard of include:

1. Shredding to provide padding in some mailers.

2. Processing with chemicals to make blown in house insulation

3. Reprocessing then stamping to make multiple cup holders some restaurants use

4. Shredding or mulching to add to other materials to make new cardboard packaging.

These are probably just the tip of the iceburg as to how paper is reused.

They roll it out or trees. They recycle it by taking old and re-making it to new. That is why recycled paper is darker sometimes, cause of the ink.

i think its made from trees, the wood of it. i just dont know how they make it like the papers you write on. recycling is kinda like soaking all the used paper and like blenderize it. then they flatten it out and let it dry. it is mostly colored brown after its dry and finished.

hope it helps.