Our school had a problem...
Too much shredded paper.
We began using the shredded paper in our worm farm and compost bins.. but there was still too much. Unfortunately, shredding paper was something that we could not stop. This is because documents with private information had to be thrown out in a specific way.
We thought about a good way to use the shredded paper. Paper mache? Art? Sculpture?
Then Mr Norman, our principal, gave us some strange looking things. They were heavy and clunky... What on earth were they?!
The Year 6 students in Rūma Rima had no idea what they were. Some thought they were juicers... some thought they were used to squeeze things.
We watched a video about these gadgets.. and found out they were used to make paper logs, or briquettes. The briquettes could be used like firewood and would burn a lot slower than just shredded paper!
The first thing we needed to do was soak the shredded paper in water for about 3-5 days.
Then we had to load the briquette maker with this soaked, shredded paper.
We then used the handles to squeeze out the excess water. This was difficult as some of us had to stand on the handles to get all the water out!
The briquette then was taken out of the mould and put in a tray to dry.
Unfortunately, when we went to test if they had dried solid, we found that they'd all fallen apart!
We discussed why this might have happened and also got some advice from our wise caretaker, Henk.
He suggested we add some newspaper or something similar to the white shredded paper. We were also advised to mix the soaking paper every day so that the paper would break down.
There were leftover Scholastic magazines that we also shredded and added to the soaking bins.
Keep watching this space to see how we go next week. Fingers crossed it works!
