Cotton Swab By: George Lachow and Nigel Pierce P. 4

Background Information A cotton swab is a short spindle of wood, rolled paper, or extruded plastic, with one or both ends coated with (for our purposes) cotton. Used for cosmetics and personal hygiene, including cleaning the ear and belly button. Invented in the 1920s by Leo Gerstenzang, a polish american.

Raise & Extract: Spindle Materials Wood: Made of wood from a forest. Paper: Made of wood pulp from a forest Plastic: Made from oil Wood Plastic Paper

Raise & Extract: Swab Material Cotton: Commonly grown in the U.S. 0.1 gram used in a cotton swab uses mL of water to be grown. (Chapagain)

Processing Wood: Bark is removed, and the wood is split into smaller pieces. Plastic: Oil is refined, the product is processed such that each polymer joins with others to make longer chains, forming plastic. Paper: Wood is squeezed into pulp, mixed with additives, and rolled and dried into paper. (Berlow) Cotton: After picking and baling, is ginned and spooled (Adams) into a rope material (Schueller).

Manufacture: Spindle Manufacture Wood: Lathed to appropriate diameter. Plastic: Extruded from a hole Paper: Rolled into a stiff spindle (Schueller)

Manufacture: Final Manufacture Glue is put onto the ends of the spindle The cotton fiber material is spun onto both ends of the spindle. The cotton swabs are put into boxes and shipped. (Schueller)

Use It is used to clean oneself (such as an ear or belly-button) For makeup purposes. Art Cleaning things (like camera lenses)

Disposal After use, it is thrown away in the trash. It then goes to a landfill. Can be recycled.

Works Cited Sources: Adams, S. (2008). Processing cotton. Retrieved April 27, 2009, Berlow, L. H. (2007). Paper. Retrieved April 27, 2009, Chapagain, A. K., Hoekstra, A. Y., Savenije, H. G., & Gautam, R. (2005). The water footprint of cotton consumption. Retrieved April 24, 2009, Schueller, R. (2007). Cotton swab. Retrieved April 24, 2009, Images: jpg