The hand or paper towel is made of paper rather than cloth and known for being an absorbent textile. Hand tower is disposable, unlike cloth hand towels and only used once. Being loosely woven ensures that water has passed through them with ease, even against the force of gravity. Hand towels are sometimes individually packed either as held or folded towels in stacks. Just like the conventional towel, these hand towels have the same purpose, such as cleaning up beverage spills, dusting, wiping windows and even drying hands.
Paper used in making hand towels
The paper used in making hand towels is either recycled or virgin paper pulp extracted from fiber crops or wood. During the process of production, bleaching sometimes takes place towards making the hand towels whiter. However, paper towels in rolls are sometimes intricately colored, with images occasionally added to them. The wet strength is improved by resin size. After all is done, the paper hand towels are individually packed before they are sold in stacks or in one huge role in institutional or domestic classes. The highest consumers of paper hand towels are Americans by around 25 kilograms per capita, which is more than 500 percent more than what is consumed in the entire Latin America and 50 percent higher that the hand towels consumed in Europe.
Varying hand towel markets
Hand towels and related products are available for both far away markets and home markets. For example, two-thirds of what is manufactured across North America is consumed at home. There has been a considerable change in the growth of hand paper towel users that has reduced as a result of people leaving folded towels for roll towel dispensers, reducing the paper towels amount used by every patron. Beyond the toilet paper, hand paper towels are the second in the wider tissue market franchise.
Recycling paper
Paper hand towels are made in the same way as any other paper product, recycled or not. During the recycling part, the paper is collected from homes and businesses before being moved to the recycling center. Lots of areas in different counties or municipalities have introduced services aiding in the collection of paper for recycling purposes before it is delivered to the areas where recycling takes place. In other areas, consumers usually drop the paper in various centers strategically put up. Once the paper has arrived, sorting takes place, such as newsprint and cardboard, before they are worked on differently. The paper is put into bales before storage until it is required.
Screening and pulping
During the recycling period, the baled paper conveyed into a huge tank full of chemicals and water where soaking takes place before it is heated and cut into very minute pieces until a pulp has been formed. The pulp is essentially plant fibers and water, which is the original state of the paper. Through a number of screens the pulp is declared free of contaminants and impurities such as small plastic bits, glue or globs are removed. The pulp is then cleaned through a centrifugal cleaner before deinking is done to remove ink particles and then refined where colors are added or not.
The recycled pulp is transformed into hand towels after the end of the refinement process.
Sam Thompson lives in Sydney, Australia. He is an editor for Toilet Paper Plus, a company selling wholesale hand towel dispensers, he spends his spare time surfing the beaches of the east coast of Australia. He hopes one day all companies will look after the environment.