Ellis Measley Capstone

Recycling My Own Paper

The School District of Philadelphia does not recycle and this has never sat right with me. I have imagined all of the paper and notebooks that I would throw out at the end of the school year. Thousands of sheets of paper are printed on, used, and thrown out everyday at schools and it’s upsetting to imagine all that going into a landfill.
For a long time I have been wanting to become more environmentally friendly. I have a core memory of making my own recycled paper in The Franklin Institute when I was in elementary school. I thought it was the coolest thing and I’d always wanted to try it out again. I would even keep my paper from school hoping that I’d recycle it myself one day. I didn’t want to go through the process just once and forget about it so I thought my capstone, a long term project, would be the perfect opportunity to try it out.
For my project, I collected paper from SLA and my Mom’s office, Roffman Miller Associates Inc, with the purpose of recycling it and eventually returning it back to where it came from. I experimented with trying to make different styles of paper and different size frames. I even made my own homemade frame. I wanted to share the knowledge I had learned so I made a “How-To” video on recycling your own paper.

Link to Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rsJPIbg4MNR2brh98xikqVNgVpaYGQqS/view?usp=sharing