paper making has been the heart of this
indian town's economy
for at least five centuries
and a lot of the work is done by hand
one sheet at a time
this factory can make ten thousand
sheets in just a day
but in a modern world full of automated
paper mills
how is a 500 year old industry still
standing
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the work at kalpana handmade papers in
san ganier starts with waste
the workshop recycles scraps from
garment factories that would otherwise
be thrown away
nimi chant saini is the owner and
oversees every step of the process
bigger pieces go through this shredding
machine
seconds a pile of pulverized fabric
comes out the other end
workers dump over 200 pounds of shredded
fabric and paper into this tank
one batch takes 1500 liters of water
the mixing used to be done entirely by
hand
which took triple the amount of time as
it does today
now the machine can turn out pulp in
under two hours
then it's time for the most crucial step
turning the pulp into paper
this skill requires years of training
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it takes two people to spread the pulp
evenly onto the sieve
the amount varies depending on how thick
the paper will be
a piece of cloth goes on top of the pulp
so that the sheets don't stick together
for specialty paper workers add extra
decorations like these rose petals
they do this 1000 times until the batch
is complete
foreign
now they use heavy machinery to press
the stack and send it to the upper level
where there's sunlight
they remove each piece of cloth one by
one so it can be reused in another batch
the sheets hang out to dry for two days
then a machine called a calendar smooths
out each piece
say that the paper's texture changes
drastically after this process
finally with the help of a giant paper
cutter
a worker slices stacks of paper down to
size
the scraps will make their way back into
the process from the beginning
paper making communities called cogsis
came to india around the 16th century
and eventually settled in the town of
san ganer
a nearby river made it the perfect place
for making paper
but when the british came to power in
the 1800s
they started importing paper from mills
abroad
the local workshops that made paper by
hand couldn't compete and many closed
down
mahatma gandhi stepped in during the
1940s during his fight for indian
independence
he advocated for local handicrafts and
is credited today with saving the
handmade paper industry
even though this factory's process has
modernized with some machines
the sheet-by-sheet technique sets it
apart from most mass-produced paper
paper
they ship all over the world and use the
paper to make hundreds of different
products
about 40 employees designed things like
calendars
jewelry boxes
that is a recycled cardboard
paper
it is a
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and as long as people need paper
nimi is confident his business will
thrive
future
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