Pineapple. image source
Greeting, how are you steemit friends? glad to meet you again and hopefully healthy always. Today I will discuss the use of natural materials that are environmentally friendly and can replace conventional materials that previously could harm the earth, hopefully useful.
As we know, today scientists are continuing to develop a variety of materials that are considered environmentally friendly, efficient and easier to find. One of them is pineapple leaves.
What can be exploited from pineapple leaves?
Actually, pineapple leaves can be useful for many purposes, but in today's discussion, I will only discuss pineapple leaves as the wood substitute to produce paper, how can?
As we know, that paper is a necessity, how not, imagine if there is no paper at this time, of course, we will be difficult to know the world news because there is no newspaper, no banknote, no tissue and so forth.
But because the paper is made of powdered wood and only the best quality wood can produce a good paper type indirectly due to the need for the paper we have participated to cut the tree.
Are there current actions to reduce the impact of the felling of trees? There are, many companies that produce paper recommended have their own forests, the companies will plant trees as production material and will cut them down when the trees are considered enough, usually around 5 years old and will replant new trees instead of trees that have been felled.
In fact, not all companies follow the recommendation, so that many forests become victims and there are no replacement trees that can harm the environment and the earth.
Another problem is the old harvest time, making it difficult for paper manufacturers to produce paper properly, or to deliberately use trees that are not allowed to be felled. The average tree takes 5 years to be used as a papermaking material.
Newspaper. image source
Some studies say that 1 ton of paper equals 13 large tree trunks, 400 liters of fuel oil and 4100 kWh of electricity, 1 ton of paper means about 200,000 sheets of paper and as I mentioned above that a ream of paper of A4 size is equivalent to one tree trunk that has an age of about 5 years [1].
How about paper processing from wood? the wooden rods will be pulverized to a pulp and it takes some kind of chemical material to create a paper that has a whiter color, the remaining chemical processing is still mixed with water is usually immediately disposed of or left to decompose on its own. Waste will actually harm the environment and can cause pollution of soil, water and so forth.
So, in addition to having a negative impact on the environment because of the diminished trees on earth can also produce other effects are much more dangerous, namely environmental pollution due to chemical waste.
What about paper made from pineapple leaves?
Before we discuss how to process it, we should know in advance about this type of plant.
Pineapple (Ananas sativa) is a plant that comes from Brazil or the American continent and has long-shaped leaves, this plant means "excellent fruit" of the Indian language [2].
This pineapple has many health benefits. The fruit also has its own position for almost every culture in some countries, such as in Europe, pineapple fruit is considered as a form of host friendliness towards guests.
Apparently, in addition to the fruit that can be enjoyed, pineapple leaves can also be used for various needs. In Aceh itself, pineapple leaves have long been used as material to produce mats, pineapple leaves will be if it is stronger and split according to size, then the craftsmen can add color to give the motif and start be wattled, In addition to the mat, pineapple leaves can also be used for making bags and other purposes.
Pineapple leaves can also be used as papermaking materials, as we know the paper is a sheet produced by pulps and some other processes. Given pineapple leaves have a fiber character that tends to be long and rough then make it feasible to be paper.
From some lab results say, that paper made of pineapple leaves has a high attraction and some other advantages.
Steps to make paper from pineapple leaves [3].
- Cut the pineapple leaves to a smaller size.
- Wash the leaf that has been cut, this process serves to clean the leaves from the dirt.
- Provide boiled water and then sour sodium hydroxide and calcium hypochlorite and mix the clean pineapple leaves.
- Once the slurry becomes flat, then you can already pour it into the mold.
- Molds that have been filled with porridge can be immediately in the sun to dry by utilizing sunlight.
- Paper has been able to use.
Utilization of pineapple leaves as paper can reduce our dependence on paper derived from wood and paper derived from pineapple leaves considered to be more environmentally friendly.
Scientists are currently developing various types of technologies that are considered environmentally friendly, it happens because now has many research results say that the earth continues to experience pollution and can endanger the life of the earth in the future.
Some studies suggest that the earth needs forests to provide oxygen for humans, but due to paper dependence leads to massive deforestation, it is consistent with surprising data that from 1985 to 1997, Indonesia has lost 1.5 million Hectares forests [4]. and growing every year.
One solution to reduce the impact of such logging is to use pineapple leaves as a substitute for wood to be used as the basic material to make paper.
Currently, the technology is still being developed to be able to produce other types of technology that can be utilized for human needs.
This is the only thing I can write on this occasion, over all the mistakes and lack of unintentional writing as a servant of God, I apologize.
Thanks to friends who have visited this blog and provided constructive comments, as well as scientists who are willing to sacrifice their time for a better civilization.
Active link reference:
[1] www.crowdvoice.com
[2] www.satuharapan.com
[3] www.scribd.com
[4] www.wikipedia.org
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