How Is Paper Made from Trees?

If you take a look around you right now, the odds are you see many paper products. Notebooks, mail, paper towels, coloring books, the list goes on and on. Even though we hear about our supposedly paperless world, we still have a lot of paper around us.

It is likely that as children we all learned that paper comes from trees. And depending on your age and where you grew up, you also may have heard a lot about protecting trees by not wasting paper.

But how does that process work? How does a giant, sturdy tree turn into something like a newspaper? The Chinese invented the paper-making process over 2000 years ago, and although the method is much more automated and updated now, the necessary steps remain the same. Let’s find out how it works.

1. Harvest the trees. Most paper starts from evergreen or coniferous trees. Softer wood such as that from pines makes the strongest papers. Federal and state regulations govern the harvesting of trees to ensure sustainable management.
2. Turn wood into pulp. The first step in this process is to mash up the raw wood and mix it with water to create pulp. This step can be done mechanically or chemically. The mechanical process results in a weaker paper, typically used for newsprint and phone books.
3. Remove the water. The soggy pulp is put on mesh screens to allow liquid to drain out. Then the pulp is pressed to further remove as much water as possible. In many factories, the sheets are then run through hot rollers for more drying.
4. Put it on rolls. Once the paper has been drained, pressed, and dried as thoroughly as possible, the sheets go onto giant rolls for processing. These rolls make their way to factories where machines cut them into proper dimensions for their intended use.

Although most paper originates from trees, some types of paper come from other plants such as cotton, hemp, straw, and recycled paper. If you’re interested in a fun project, you can even try making paper on your own. You may develop a great new skill!​