A popular belief holds that it is impossible to fold a sheet of paper in half more than 7 times, folding in any direction, as the challenge had existed for many years and had never been solved. This belief was debunked by then high school student Britney Gallivan who successfully folded a piece of paper 12 times. More importantly she developed the mathematical and physical explanations for the actual folding limits of incompressible materials when folding in one or two directions. After the mathematics were developed she demonstrated folding in half 12 times both by folding paper in a single direction and by folding gold foil while rotating the folding 90 degrees after each fold.
The television series MythBusters “busted the myth” of the 7 fold limit by folding taped-together sheets the size of a football field in half and turning 90 degrees each time, for a total of 11 folds. The first eight folds were completed by hand, while the rest were completed using both steam rollers and fork lifts. This was accomplished by using not a single piece of paper but 17 large rolls of paper taped together to form a very large yet relatively thin “sheet.”
Folding a piece of paper in half 100 times, if it were possible, would produce a stack of paper approximately 8×1022 miles in height.
For more wild facts about paper folding, go to wikipedia.org.
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The banana plant has long been a source of fiber for high quality textiles. In Japan, banana cultivation for clothing and household use dates back to at least the 13th century. In the Japanese system, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled in lye to prepare fibers for yarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses.
Banana fiber is used in the production of banana paper. Banana paper is used in two different senses: to refer to a paper made from the bark of the banana plant, mainly used for artistic purposes, or paper made from banana fiber, obtained with an industrialized process from the stem and the non-usable fruits. The paper itself can be either hand-made or in industrial processes.
For more wild facts about bananas, go to wikipedia.org.
Chad refers to paper fragments created when holes are made in a paper, card or similar synthetic materials, typically computer punched tapeor punched cards. Sometimes chad has been used as a mass noun or as a countable noun, and the plural is commonly either “chad” (as in “a pile of chad”) or “chads” (as in “the multiple hanging chads”)
Chad are more commonly seen in mundane, everyday settings. When a hole punch of the functional or decorative type is used, it removes a small amount of paper – a chad. Chad are also common in stores, where holes are punched so that merchandise can be hung on pegs or clips. Chad are also the small strips, pieces of paper or shred waste that remain of the documents fed through a paper shredder. Chad can also be the result of punching holes in any sort of thin material, such as cloth, plastic, or even sheet metal.
For more wild facts about chads, go to wikipedia.com.
In 2003, only 48.3% of office paper was recovered for recycling.
Recovered paper accounts for 37% of the U.S. pulp supply.
Printing and writing papers use the least amount of recycled content — just 6%. Tissues use the most, at 45%, and newsprint is not far behind, at 32%.
Demand for recycled paper will exceed supply by 1.5 million tons of recycled pulp per year within 10 years.
While the paper industry invests in new recycled newsprint and paper packaging plants in the developing world, almost none of the new printing and writing paper mills use recycled content.
China, India and the rest of Asia are the fastest growing per-capita users of paper, but they still rank far behind Eastern Europe and Latin America (about 100 pounds per person per year), Australia (about 300 pounds per person per year) and Western Europe (more than 400 pounds per person per year).
The Forest Stewardship Council’s certification of sustainable forestry practices is growing, with 50% of the paper product market share and 226 million acres accounted for. Advocates say the demand for recycled paper and sustainably harvested pulp from consumers, advertisers, magazine makers and other users of paper will yield the fastest reforms of the industry.
For more wild facts about the environment, go to thedailygreen.com.
