Waste paper used to make tables, chairs

Press, 14 January 1986, Page 33

Waste paper used to make tables, chairs

By

MICHELLE FAUL,

of Associated Press Harare

Bevill Packer jumps up and down on his paper tables and dashes his paper chairs to the floor. “They’re often stronger than wood”, he says, “and they help save trees and energy.” Mr Packer, aged 70, a retired college lecturer, is a proponent of a craft he developed in the late 1970 s and dubbed “appropriate paper-based technology” (APT) - making things out of waste paper. Today, Mr Packer’s products, ranging from tables and toys to baskets and bowls, furnish schools and homes in rural Zimbabwe. His latest product, a paper wheelchair, is being tried at a home for disabled children.

Mr Packer has even used scrap paper to make solar ovens with fronts made of glass collected from junk dealers.

“The beauty of it all is that all APT articles contain at least 99 per cent waste paper,” Mr Packer said in an interview. “Materials to make the items cost virtually nothing, their manufacture provides employment and they promote conservation.” Saving trees helps in Africa, where about 80 per cent of the energy is derived from wood. In Zimbabwe, many rural women spend half the day gathering firewood for cooking and deplete the forests in the process. Three of Mr Packer’s wheelchairs, requiring only paper and paste and 12 to 20 hours of labour, have been on trial for a month at Harare’s Jairos Jiri Home for Disabled Children.

One is being used by Darlington Zambe, who has spent most of his six years lying on beds and floor mats. When he wanted to move, his mother had to carry him. “The joy that little boy gets from his chair is too wonderful to see,” said Mr Packer.

Born in Melksham, Wiltshire, England, Mr Parker has lived in Africa for 45 years, the last 22 in Zimbabwe.

The APT wheelchairs, with only two wheels, both made of roll upon roll of paper, are not as mobile as conventional models, but Mr Packer says they could be improved by using old wheels from baby carriages. Wilson Ruvhere, manager of the home, said scores of parents with disabled children were eager to acquire a Packer wheelchair since a conventional one made locally costs SZ4OO (about SNZ42I) and an imported one around SZBOO (about SNZB42). Mr Packer has put no cost on his wheelchairs. He has donated the ones made so far, but he is the only person making them and hopes to train high school students to make them for charity. Like all APT articles, the

wheelchairs are made by pasting together layer upon layer of scrap cardboard and paper. Ola shoe boxes, potato bags, cereal cartons and other scraps can be pressed into flat surfaces or rolled to make such items as table legs or wheels. Their strength comes from paste made of flour and from applying pressure. For example, to make a flat surface, Packer stands at intervals on the layers of paper and paste while they dry. The only cost is for flour to make the paste and varnish for the finishing. But Packer said craftsmen could make paste from leftovers of Zimbabwe’s staple food, a thick porridge made from ground corn.

“We don’t buy paint to decorate. That costs money,” Mr Packer said. “We use pictures from old magazines, or the colors from the pictures, to make mosaics.” Children’s tables are decorated with racing cars, coffee tables are adorned with wildlife scenes and children’s chairs are labeled “comrade” or “commander.” Other APT items include children’s building blocks, hats and baskets. “The possibilities are endless,” said Mr Packer, who with his wife, Joan, runs courses at minimal cost for domestic workers and peasants. The aim is to teach them to make items for their own use and for sale. Mrs Packer said one of her domestic workers who

took the course earns about SZ9O (about $95) a month in her spare time making APT furniture. That’s a tidy sum in a country where the minimum monthly wage is SZ7S (about $79). Mr Packer is lobbying to have his craft taught in schools along with woodworking. “It’s cheaper,” said Mrs Packer, “to take up APT as a vocation than woodworking because it isn’t necessary to buy expensive tools.” Wood itself, she said, is becoming scarcer and more expensive.

One drawback of Mrs Packer’s products is that they can deteriorate if rained on, so they are meant for use indoors or in sunny weather.