Kolkata 02 August 2018 - The EarthSmiles.net team gave a workshop on paper making at Ankur Kala, a women's selfhelp group located at 72 Park Street, Kolkata. The event, at the Ankur Kala premises, lasted from 10:00 a.m. to 01:30 p.m. and focused on making recycled paper from used and discarded paper. The workshop started with a small presentation on preservation of Earth and the effects of deforestation. The presentation was given by EarthSmilers Ishani in English and Krisha in Hindi. It was followed by a talk on the ways of paper making and a short video on large scale paper production. As the pair explained the different ways of making paper, while the audience took notes and asked a few questions on the process.

After the presentation was over, the EarthSmiles.net team introduced paper making by explaining them the unique process to be taught at the workshop. Though some of the paper used - old newspapers - was shredded with an electric shredder to ease the process, the advantages of hand shredding in paper making, was also discussed. The Ankur Kala women in the centre helped proactively to hand shred the paper. This shredded paper was put into warm water for about 20 minutes and mixed before being transferred to a kitchen/houshold mixer to make a pulp out of it. Pourd into water in a vat, this pulp became a "slurry" from which the handmade paper would be made. The EarthSmiles.net team showed the women the entire process of "pulling" paper from the slurry; and he women there learned it quickly, that they began to sucessful pull sheets of paper, too. 9 sheets of paper with different designs were made by the women over a period on 1.5 hours, while they learned and did!

The women remove excess water from a mould....

After the hands-on workshop, a short meeting was held where the women wrote down the step by step process on paper making, cleared doubts and expressed their ideas and queries. The EarthSmiles.net team responded proactively. The Ankur Kala women were presented with 2 sets of moulds and decals (paper making equipment) so that they could continue to make paper for themselves. The women their appreciated the efforts put by the EarthSmiles.net team.They took some inspiration on recycling paper from the team and the workshop ended.

Just collecting used paper and recycling it can help a lot in stopping the reduction of green cover on earth. Recycling paper also saves energy, reduces pollution, preserves trees and conserves landfill space, while making new paper is a messy process that uses caustic chemicals and produces harmful byproducts and emissions. If no water is reused and/or re-circulated, a plant may use as much as 300 - 400 ton or cubic meter of water to make one ton of paper!

Ankur Kala women pull a sheet of floral paper, while EarthSmiler Krisha loooks on.