ISLAMABAD: A young graduate of Pakistan’s prestigious National College of Arts in the eastern city of Lahore has a unique hobby. She collects organic waste from around the city of Islamabad and brings it home, eventually converting the waste into paper bags and other paper stationery.
A student of visual communications design, Maham Farid decided she was passionate about innovative packaging that was eco-friendly.
“I learned to make these organic bags by myself using and mixing different methods,” she said and added that her creations were an alternative to tree pulp paper which was not eco-friendly and responsible for damaging the environment.
“The recycled life of my organic brown paper is longer than tree pulp paper,” Farid said.
To collect raw material for the paper products, Farid visits plant nurseries to collect organic fibers. Currently, she uses 10 different types of organic waste to make her products. In a single day, she can make up to ten sheets of paper and then creates different products ranging from paper bags to jewelry boxes and gift wrapping.
For now, she is only supplying her bags and paper products to friends and family, but based on the enormous demand, she plans on launching a brand soon, she said.
The procedure begins by cutting the organic waste fibers to size and then boiling them. Once at room temperature, she blends the raw material in a common blender and places the blended pulp over a deckle- a removable wooden frame used in paper-making. After this, she shakes the mixture inside a water tub to make a thin stratum of paper and puts the deckle out in the sun to dry.