Ours to Protect Week 2 - Grass Sheets
On this week's Our To Protect, we will look at an environmentally friendly way of making paper.
Tullamore College Students Ryan Plunkett & Cillian Farrell have been busy over the last year trying out new ways of making sheets of paper.
They boiled grass mixed it with a binding agent Okra and used a mould and deckle to make actual paper sheets.
Once, they perfected the sheets of paper, they moved on to other uses for the paper. They are also making wildflower sheet pouches which can just be dropped into the garden.
Midlands 103's Sinead Hubble has been speaking with Ryan and Cillian about their project:
Grass Sheets Blog:
On Monday the 12th of May we had the incredible opportunity to take part in an interview with Midlands 103. This was definitely a milestone for our project as now we had the chance to spread awareness about our project "Grass Sheets" at a local level.
Our project Grass Sheets creates a brand-new alternative to regular paper, one made out of grass! But our project is more than that. It's about sustainability, innovation and most importantly spreading awareness about the environment. From our grass paper, we have created many products such as grass paper bags, grass paper pouches with wildflower seeds that you can plant, bookmarks and we now plan on making notebooks out of grass paper.
With our project we have had huge success. We have won many nationwide awards such as overall YSI winners, first in the Eco-entrepreneurship award at the Young Environmentalist and 3rd in the Bord Na Móna secondary schools' competition. We have spread awareness about our project both inside and outside the classroom. In school, we gave lots of presentations about our projects to students. Outside the classroom, we have been featured in newspapers and have an active presence on Instagram. We'd really appreciate it if you'd follow us on Instagram @grasssheets_ysi.
At Midlands 103, we were both nervous and excited to be interviewed. It was our first time on live radio and it felt like all our hard work was getting great recognition now. We spent time preparing what to say and how to clearly say it.
Our interview took place with Sinéad Hubble and lasted roughly 15 minutes. When taking the interview, we thought to just speak our mind about the project. Sinéad was very friendly and genuinely interested in our project. The questions she asked us, we were both able to answer and everything went as smoothly as we hoped.
From the interview, it made us realise how important it is to communicate our passion. Talking about our work on air helped us realise how much of a difference our project is actually making. It also showed us how many people in the community actually support our project.
Our next big step is representing Ireland in Georgia this September at the Sage World Cup. And we'd really appreciate your support. If you'd like to get involved with our project, or even have some possible ideas for us please DM us on Instagram @grasssheets_ysi or email us at greensheetsysi@gmail.com