Paper Mache: Best For Decor and Packaging

(A Journal Essay)

What if one day, you saw bunches of paper lying on the corner of your room and from
there, your craft started.
Paper has been one of the most commonly used material not just in school but in any kind
of published texts such as newspapers, magazines, books, flyers, brochures and the like. No
wonder why most of the waste we usually seen are papers. However, paper is more of a material
than waste subjected to repurpose; more of a craft than a crap. Paper Mache is one of the crafts
where paper is known best at.
But levying the abovementioned craft, ponder the question: how paper is made?
To start the use of paper as a medium of a craft, it has to be understood how base material
is made and can be repurpose, in this case having the paper as the base material. According to the
PaperTR, paper can be made in two ways such as through manual and industrial process.
However less likely observed, manual productions remain a heritage that has not altered since
paper was invented in China around 100 BC. In the process of making paper manually, the fiber
is extracted from the other raw materials. Then comes battering off the fibers into pulp. By
incorporating specific chemical premixes, the properties of the paper can be modified. After
all the additional elements are added the resulting mixture is filtered, the actual paper gets
pressed and colored. Meanwhile, in an industrial manufacturing of paper, the pulp is refined and
a pulp slurry is produced by combining it with water as well as other additives. The fourdrinier
machine disseminates the slurry pulp onto a moveable screen to remove the water out from
the slurry. The damp sheet is then dried using rollers. To complete, enormous rolls of dry paper
sheets are produced.
Paper Mache is a creative and cheap way of repurposing papers we deemed are waste and
cannot be used for its intended purpose. This craft is giving us the best and simplest option to
repurpose than by just dumping bundles of paper. Paper Mache can be made with just 5 basic
steps. As basis to master these steps, we could start following key instructions provided by the
Spruce Craft including preparation of paste mixture, ripping of paper, dipping of paper,
application to the form, and repetition of process. Paper Mache can be incorporated with many
forms including sculptures, vases, masks, boxes, and other ornamental and decorative designs.
The use of paper mâché could also be a great option for interior designs as decorations.
Revealed by the report of Mordor Intelligence focusing on the use of paper as packaging
entitled “PAPER PACKAGING MARKET - GROWTH, TRENDS, COVID-19 IMPACT, AND
FORECASTS (2022 - 2027)”, The industry for paper packaging experienced a CAGR of 3.87%
from 2021 to 2026. The COVID-19 global epidemic caused significant problems for the
packaging sector, including the impacts of the country wide lockdown, businesses shifting their
sourcing away from mainland China, and reevaluating the components being used packaging.
Even though the supply chain of packaging products has experienced a massive effect, a sudden
rise in the end-user consumption in certain implementations has considerably widened the range
of paper packaging products. However focusing only on the paper itself as packaging, paper
mâché production can also be a breakthrough to lessen our consumption for unecological
material for packaging our goods such as plastic. It can be concluded that producing boxes of
different shapes can be made that will serve as packaging, benefits both the paper mâché
industry, the paper packaging industry, the paper production industry for more demands and the
environment as paper becomes a contributing waste. In some establishments, the incorporation of
paper crafts such as decorations and packaging highly contribute to the aim of promoting
repurposing of paper.

References:
https://www.papertr.com/paper-production-methods/
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/paper-mache-directions-1245292
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/paper-packaging-market