Alva Review-Courier -

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things.” Julie Andrews sang this in “The Sound of Music.”

Smithsonian Magazine says, “Paper: a humble yet essential part of the fabric of daily life.” Thanks to recycling efforts, paper and cardboard are the most recycled materials in the country.

“Some of last year’s wastepaper is back again in the form of cardboard and packaging.” This quote could be from a newspaper today but instead dates from 1927. Many of the early rag-pickers went from apartments to mansions picking out the smallest scraps of paper and fabric for recycling. Linen cloth was especially useful. Originally woven from flax, it could be recycled into paper and was the writing material of choice for our founding fathers, with Benjamin Franklin a major consumer who used it to print books, pamphlets and newspapers – even the Declaration of Independence. An anonymous poet of the day wrote:

So that the flax which first springs from the land

First flax, then yarn

To weave the same which they took pains to spin

Then of the Rags the paper is made,

Which in process of time doth waste and fade;

So what comes from the earth, appeareth plain,

The same in Time, returns again.