Grass Paper

• June 23rd, 2005 • • experiments, how-to, papermaking •

I mow a lawn on a regular basis, and wondered what I could do with all of the extra grass clippings. Maybe I could…make paper? Yes! This week I embarked on a “make paper out of grass clippings” project. I’ll gladly share the process and the results, but I don’t think I would do it again. The smell of cooked/soaking clippings makes me want to retch now. I mean it, I almost vomited at one point in this project. Fortunately, the smell of fresh-cut grass doesn’t smell remotely like my project, so I can still enjoy that summer pleasure.

On to the paper!

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1) Collect clippings. I estimate that I used about 8 cups of freshly clipped grass to start. The lawn mowed for them was free of poison, fertilizer and animal droppings. (That might’ve made it smell worse.)

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2) Cook clippings. My goal here was to soften the clippings so that they would break up better. OH MY GOD this part stank. The whole apartment reeked of cooking grass. If you try this, make sure there’s plenty of ventilation. Blech. I added about 1/2 cup of baking soda to help the softening. (Most papermaking recommends washing soda, but baking will do in a pinch. Or if you’re poor.) The grass was cooked for about an hour.

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3) Blend cooked clippings. This part looks truely vile. They should make people on those crazy TV game shows drink cooked grass shakes. Gag. Most of the clippings broke up fairly well; most pieces were about 1/4in-1/8in long. Not bad!

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4) You can go two ways on this one. Either make pure grass paper, or, mix the grass pulp with recycled paper pulp. I chose to make pure grass paper first.

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5a) Grass paper. There’s probably about 5 gallons of water in the tub, and all of the cooked clippings. I slipped the deckle in and ewwwwww the water was extra slimey. A fairly thick sheet was dumped on a drying rag and proceeded to smell like cooked grass. Blaugh.

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5b) Grass paper with recycled pulp. I simply added about 3 cups of pulp I had on hand to the grass tub and mixed together. The sheet pulled from this mixture looked much less like a square mat of pond muck.

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6) Drying. The Texas heat is perfect right now; no humidity, and 90 degree weather. The paper dried overnight.

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This project makes me cringe now. I would gladly try again with dried straw, but my attempts to use something I had an abundance of didn’t work well enough for me. The main problem was the “Gag Factor.” Oh yeah, you probably want to hear about my near-vomit experience? A portion of the clippings I left in a bucket to “cook” in the summer sun. I would swear that something had DIED and was ROTTING for several days in that bucket instead of grass. Cleaning out that bucket was a real treat, I tell ya.Admittedly, the finished result looks quite nice. The paper should get more of a golden hue as the grass dries completely. But durn it, all I can think of when I see the sheets is that awful smell!

 

6 Responses to ' Grass Paper '

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1. Nicole said,
   
   

   on June 24th, 2005 at 6:09 am

   I love reading about your projects. The pictures help a lot too. I’d like to see the paper once they dry.

   Who knew grass could smell so vile? :O

   P.S. Can we see pics of the shirt you made for your dad?

2. Olivia said,
   
   

   on June 24th, 2005 at 7:55 pm

   I’ll totally get some pics up of the finished paper. I want to wait until it “goldens up” a bit, which, with the heat shouldn’t take too long!

   And I think I’m going to have to catch my dad to get a photo of him in those shirts…

3. camille said,
   
   

   on July 7th, 2005 at 11:41 pm

   i like reading your website especially the paper-grass making beacause its my research paper in my school. I’m planning to try your project… thanks a lot
   camille

4. Anonymous said,
   
   

   on January 23rd, 2006 at 4:00 am

   thanks i have now my research topic at last!!!

5. Anonymous said,
   
   

   on April 26th, 2006 at 8:24 pm

   I did an experement independant of this, and have some suggestions:

   1) use allready dry clippings, and pre-blend prior to cooking. This improves the fineness of the end product, and reduces processing time somewhat.

   2) USE BLEACH. Take the pre-blended, dry clippings and add about a cup of straight bleach. This will produce prodigious ammounts of foam, as it breaks down various protien compounds inside the grass. It also helps to soften the grass fibers themselves somewhat in a chemical manner. Adding bleach prior to cooking replaces the “Boiled grass” smell with “My god, boiling bleach!” smell, but at least then you can blame it on cleaning the bathroom………… USE A VENTILATOR!

   3) Cook for several minutes, until you start to see bits of the grass floating in a manner simmilar to a very coarse pulp. STRAIN the mixture through a section of polyesther or nylon fabric (tight weave– an old sheet works well) and squeeze out all the liquid. Place the wrung out chunks of coarse pulp back into the blender, and add a fresh cup of bleach. Blend on low setting. YOu will notice a temporary lightening of the fibers– this is good, since we want to disolve all that nasty stuff in the grass to get a nice light colored paper…. Blend until smooth and creamy, by slowly stepping up the power on the blender. If it is too thick add more bleach. try to avoid adding water at this stage.

   4) Once nice and creamy, return to the cookpot and cook some more. If you notice any separation (heavy bits going to the bottom of the pan) while cooking, then simmer at medium heat for 15-20 minutes, then return to blender and blend again. Keep cooking/blending until it no longer separates, and has a decidedly ‘cream of wheat’ consistancy.

   5) Strain again through the cloth. Be sure to wash the cloth first from the previous straining, to remove any large fiber chunks that evaded blending. Once strained, return to blender for the final time, and add another cup of bleach. Blend throughouly. You will notice by now a DECIDED lightening of the product, and it should even RESEMBLE cream of wheat completely by now. (If not, keep blending-cooking-blending-cooking-straining-bleaching until it does).

   6) Cook on medium heat several minutes. If the mixture darkens, strain immediately, and add more bleach. Once the mixture remains light, fluffy, and cream colored after prolonged cooking it is time to strain, and RINSE.

   7) Take the strained chunks and return them to the pan. Add hot water to re-melt the chunks into fluffy paste. Cook on the stove 15 to 20 minutes longer. Strain through the fabric again, return the chunks to the pot, and add water— repeat 3 times. By the end of the 3rd washing, your pulp should be more or less bleach free, and ready for couching.

   Thin the mixture in your pot to a suitable consistancy, and pour into your resevior. Get out your mold and deckle, and prepare some paper. The grass clippings from my lawn made a nice cream colored paper this way.

6. Olivia said,
   
   

   on April 27th, 2006 at 10:07 am

   Interesting on the alternate grass-clippings technique.

   Yeah, I had an afterthought about drying the grass before-hand; that would probably make it similar to using straw. Upon doing some research, I found that when using woody plants for paper, using sodium carbonate (washing soda, different than sodium bicarbonate or baking soda) is good to use. If a stronger effect is desired, use sodium hydroxide or lye. WEAR your gloves and goggles and remember to always add the lye to water never water to lye (it may splash into your face).

   I’d only caution about boiling bleach because of the release of chlorine. Heating bleach would make it highly aggressive (read: dangerous) until the chlorine dissipated. In addition to using a ventilator, I’d use a respirator, open all the doors and windows and turn on all the fans; but I’m fairly paranoid about evil gasses!

   An alternative to chlorine bleach might be oxygenated bleach (like Oxyclean) which would help to cut the color, if that is what is desired. Whenever I make paper, I only add a bit of chlorine bleach to the pulp to prevent stuff from growing in the water.

   I probably should post a follow-up to how my paper actually looked when dried. The grass/pulp blend dried with a beautiful cream color, no chemicals necessary! The pure grass paper dried to a lovely golden color and smells like fresh hay. (A contrast to the vile cooked grass smell it had when fresh!)

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