They recently featured a piece on Adina Levin, the co-founder of Collab. Collab is short for collaborators, and is a Manhattan based company that plans on re-localizing the economy through helping designers, writers, artists, musicians and other creative people collaborate together to form a more sustainable world.

By enabling these innovative minds with the tools and space that they need to collaborate together, Collab hopes to get them inspired and working together, which will hopefully yield environmentally-friendly products and processes to help create localized economy.

One sustainable practice that Levin advocates–and is knowledgeable in–is making homemade paper. Levin uses a very similar process to the one posted here at Paper Making. She also promotes a messy, hands-on approach, often touching the paper pulp and getting very involved in the process. Her video and instructions are perfect for anyone who isn’t afraid to get messy and produce some truly amazing results.

Would using handmade paper really support a more local economy and a sustainable world in general? In a word, probably. By using 50% less energy and 75% less water–as well as creating up to 90% less wastewater and 70% less air pollution–than paper made from unused fibers, it definitely has less of an environmental impact.