Hello Ashok I have done a different experiment. On one hand I tried adding portland to the paper/water mix. This resulted in fairly nice bricks that held their shape. On the other I tried just drying the mulched paper. THe resultant brick was deformed and had shrunk a fair bit. My conclusion was that the portland added structure to the paper as it cured and thus added better pouricity to the block. As to decay I think one has to consider the chemical makeup of clay vs portland. Clay is what I plant my garden in. It supports life. The kind of life that decomposes plant material. As long as there is some amount of moisture, these organisms will be active at doing what they do best. Portland on the other hand is caustic. Extremly corrosive (check out the warnings on the package). Thus portland makes a much better preservative than clay. However!!! I once read a Mother Earth News article on the use of clay with sand and asphalt emulsion. I have also heard of clay used in combination with lime. The addition of lime or the emulsion create a chemical change in the clay that allow it to harden and form a somewhat water resistant material. This would certianly slow down if not completely stop any breakdown of organic material (paper). I did try mixing some wood ash with the mulched paper to see what that would do. Structurely it was similar to the paper mulch brick but chemically it was different. The ash is insulative and caustic (lye). Both are desireable when working with wet paper. Not sure what portland would have done to that mix. Something else that seemed to work better. I took the white styrofoam packaging that most electronics comes in these days and put it in my paper mulcher. I then took the paper and foam and placed it in a form and let it dry. The strength of the block seemed somewhat less but the shape was less deformed. I haven't done any other experimenting with these recipies. Let me know if someone has. Victor @ The Stoneybog --- On Fri, 5/20/11, ashokchand2000 <ashokchand2000@yahoo.com> wrote:
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