How to recycle air-dried clay.

1. Recycling Clay.
Sharon Liu.
2023/09/04.
Summary of the process.
Air-dried clay, can be recycled, and so reused. The main take home message, in recycling clay, is to add water to it. In
this recycling process, I took fresh clay, moulded it into a boat shape, and then recycled it, to produce clay, which I
moulded into a boat shape, again. This is an example of recycling, which produces a new object, which is the same as the
old object. (Note: changing the substance of the clay, by firing it in a kiln, alters the microscopic structure of the clay, so
it is not easily dissolved by water. Recycling fired clay, is not covered in this document.)
The process.
Take an empty plastic pot, and put your air-dried clay model (e.g. a boat), into it. Add water, to submerge the clay scrap.
Leave in water, for a week, with the top of the pot sealed by plastic clingfilm. During this time, the water soaks into the
clay, and makes it soft. The excess water, is then poured into a plant pot, in the garden. The clay in the pot is left to dry,
with a check every hour. The top of the pot, is unsealed. When the clay is less wet, the top of the clay is flattened, so it
forms a level in the pot. The wet clay, is safe to touch, as plenty of water is used in pottery making. A fingernail can be
used, to check the consistency of the clay, by indenting the clay. After 6 days, the clay is ready to remould.
What next.
Despite the ability to recycle clay, once the clay is heated above a certain temperature, its substance changes, so the
clay can still not be used for making a mould, to recycle aluminium with. Therefore, we turn our attention to the dried
flour dough mould, which is not so easy to shape. This possibly requires an exact amount of water, to reach the right
consistency. Also, I suspect there is a lot of kneading required.