The Americans use kraft paper, ie, made from virgin fibre, ie trees, as opposed
to most of UK 'kraft' wrapping paper which is pretty near 100% recycled. They
do it because they can, since trees are cheap in the US - I hasten to add that
they plant and grow the trees that they use for paper-making. Having said
that, they are building recycling mills for packaging papers, but because most
of the stuff they recycle is made from 100% virgin, their 'recycled' paper is
superb compared to ours.

I would have thought that any old thick paper would do for this kind of
underlay. If you know anyone who works for a corrugated box company, they may
get you a stub end of paper on the reel.

Incidentally, paper cannot be recycled indefinitely. Each time it is subjected
to the paper-making process, the fibres get shorter and the paper gets weaker,
and eventually you would have mush. The whole cycle depends upon the
introduction of virgin fibre - usually from trees, but it could be any
cellulose fibre - to maintain paper strength.

There will be a test at the end of the month, class.