A SHIRT TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD
Postal workers’ shirts have probably already seen a few things in their time as post
office uniforms. When they are replaced, however, that's far from the end of the story, because in 2022 Austrian Post had the idea of turning worn-out post office shirts into rag paper and then turning that into stamps – a classic example of upcycling, because a stamp may not be big, but it is a postage stamp with a value and a popular collector item.
Making handmade paper from rags is a very old craft. Rag paper was once a popular, robust and – compared to parchment – cheap writing material, with wood only becoming the standard material for producing paper in the 19th century. It is produced from rags or old items of clothing. These are shredded in the paper mill, mixed with water and then ground. After being repeatedly diluted with water and then sieved with a range of sieves, the resulting pasty substance, the so-called pulp, is couched. This means that the wet paper pulp is applied to a felt. Water is extracted from the sheets of paper using a hydraulic press and they are then hung up to dry.
The A3-size rag paper sheets made from the postal workers’ shirts were then printed using a combination of digital and silk-screen printing, cut to size and a gum applied. The blue fibres from the shirts can still be clearly seen in the stamps, but in this format they no longer need to be washed or ironed. And now there is nothing to stop that postal worker's old shirt from heading off around the world in its new role as a stamp on a letter or postcard!
You can still see the blue fibres from the shirts
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