Papier-mâché made from recycled paper and surplus cotton In my company, we use recycled paper and cotton fabric from the textile and fashion industries that would otherwise have been burned or thrown away. Around 40 million tons of textile waste, offcuts and other surplus materials, are burned or end up in landfills, and it's almost unbearable to think about. All the cotton fabric we use for papier-mâché is recycled. The same is the paper the Indian women use. Cardboard boxes, newspapers and the like are collected or picked up from landfills, torn into a thousand pieces, mixed into pulp, shaped into decorations according to my design and painted. Everything is done with the hands, with body and soul. I have a hard time with waste, so I really like the recycling of waste products. Basically, I am deeply fascinated by the fact that you can create new life and make the finest things out of materials that would have been burned or thrown away somewhere on our earth. Then we get what we used and avoid depleting the planet of more resources.

My own little creative corner.

Most of us have probably dipped pieces of newspaper in wallpaper paste and covered a balloon, made a tower out of milk cartons or built a cardboard house in kindergarten. I have never lost my basic admiration for what can be created with humble materials, and now – after working with several different materials for many years – I have returned to papier-mâché.

All papier-mâché crafts are handmade from recycled paper, surplus cotton and biodegradable materials. The paper is waste paper, cardboard boxes and newspapers that are collected from landfills,