Why Redefine Origami?

Origami, or the “art of paper folding,” is a popular and relaxing pastime for people of all ages. However, the majority of people do not consider the implications that origami can have on the environment. Some shocking facts about paper wastage:

The amount of paper thrown away in a year amounts to nearly 1 billion trees

85 million tons of paper are thrown away each year

Paper makes up about 25% of the space in landfills

What if we could redefine origami to be inherently more sustainable?

The Vision

Our goal is to shift people away from using fresh, new paper for origami and instead towards using recycled paper, seaweed, or other natural products as an alternative. While the possibilities of what you can create through simple paper-folding patterns is endless, this same art can be created more uniquely through the use of sustainable materials… it just requires a bit of imagination.

This is an example of one of my origami projects where I used recycled paper in order to build a decorative origami Ninja Star. There are many different ways to create recycled paper, but the method I used was to first make pulp out of the old paper. Then, I used a mold to pour the pulp, added some color, and allowed time for it to airdry into a thin sheet.

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