Phragmites Australis - Plants can be made into Paper
Phrag is everywhere.
Common reed (Phragmites Australis) is a displaced plant commonly found near waterways and especially near construction sites, ditched marshes, roadside ditches, and other disturbed sites. With such a plentiful fiber used in other areas of the world for papermaking with loaded environmental significance, I decided to process a handful of these plants into pulp and paper.
I recommend speaking to your local environmental conservationists on how to correctly, and where to, harvest Phrag. If hand cutting phrag, be sure to ask permission from land owners first, and contain the seed head before cutting the stalk. It spreads very easily! That’s why it’s everywhere, once you start looking.
You can visit the Rhode Island Natural History Survey website for information on invasive species.
You can make paper from almost any plant that contains cellulose fiber (think the strings on celery). Some plants make better paper than other, and the color, texture, and quality of the end paper hugely depends on the fiber you start out with, and when you harvest them. The Phrag I harvested made a warm, light brown paper that is surprisingly strong and rattly.
MY PROCESS
1. Cut stalks up and soaked overnight in water.
I cut up a lot more than I needed.
2. Boiled with a caustic solution & water.
I used soda ash from a ceramic supply company, but you can also order washing soda as well, to removes lignins and other material from the cellulose fiber, making your paper stronger and archival.
I used a stainless steel pot that won’t be used again for food. The stainless steel is nonreactive.
3. Rinse, Rinse, Rinse
I rinsed the fiber well, to rid it of any caustic solution. The water should run clear.
4. Beat into a pulp with a Hollander Beater.
I used my Critter Beater, a portable beater built by Mark Lander in New Zealand. A Hollander beater macerates, cuts, and fibrillates the fibers into a pulp with water.
5. Made the paper
See my educational blog Paperslurry for photos of how to pull sheets of paper from a vat of pulp with a mould and deckle.
Below are some photos and phrag paper experiments.
