Although ‘sustainable paper’ uses fast-growing saplings, these often use chemicals (and sometimes replace old-growth forests that are home to native wildlife, which fast-growing trees don’t really support). Also read of dung paper (which helps save elephants!)
These beautifully illustrated notebooks are made from premium materials, printed on recycled paper and sent in plastic-free packaging. Ideal for keeping organised, writing your thoughts or drafting out your masterpiece novel! This pretty 128-page pink red bold flower notebook is designed to open and lay flat.
This lined notebook has 60 pages, with a little palm tree, at the bottom of each page. Or for some cowboy boots notebooks!
Quality Recycled Notebooks from Kent
PortWestLDN is a quality brand of recycled paper notebooks. Unlike most ‘recycled paper’, these really are made from post-consumer waste to save trees.
The perfect-bound A5 journals are made from a blend of post-consumer recycled paper with other upcycled materials like coffee cups. Lovingly made in Kent, they also feature a handy grosgrain page marker. Choose from 192 lined or dotted pages. Made using green energy.
Beautifully crafted and naturally-dyed, these make great additions to your office, or good sustainable gifts. Everyone could do with a beautiful book to write notes in, whether it’s to-do lists, accounting or journaling.
The company also offers ‘second’ notebooks for a little discount, due to minor blemishes due to transport or storage (usually little things like faint cover scratches, unevenly rounded corners or the odd print misalignment).
The recycled sketch pads are wirebound and feature heavy recycled card and inside recycled paper, with non-plastic coated recycled metal wire (85 blank pages).
Unique Notebooks (from recycled coffee cups)
CoffeeNotes is a unique company in Dorset, which makes beautiful notebooks. The difference is that they are made from recycled coffee cups. Most disposable coffee cups can’t be recycled, as they contain 5% plastic. So this company melts down the cups to use the paper for the books, and then uses the plastic as ‘energy’ to make the cups!
All are vegan (bar one pad, made with recycled wool cover).
The to-do list pads are ideal as reminders or for shopping lists. Sold in a pack of three tall pads, each one has 60 tear-off pages with lined tick box sections and dotted sections, and dotted reverse sides.
The wire-bound pads contain dotted pages, and a folded cover so no glue is needed, the spiral spine is easily recycled. Also in plain and lined versions.
The stitched pads have recycled softback covers and the set includes plain, lined and dotted pages.
The planner features a cover made from real coffee waste, and a seven-day layout to plan your week. With blank columns for weekdays, and spaces for tasks and reminders. Also as an organiser pad with tear-away pages and three flexible spaces for lists, notes and doodles.
Unique Notebooks (made from old books)
About Blanks is a unique company. These notebooks are made by repurposing old books from libraries, that would otherwise have gone to landfill. And the company does all it can to use up recycled materials, rather than use new.
The company also unique employs people with disabilities and those with poor job prospects, to make the books.
This company is based over the sea with our Dutch friends in Rotterdam. Home to one of the world’s biggest ports, you can sail here from Hull (though it will take you 11 hours and cost several hundred pounds).
Beautiful Notebooks (made from rubbish!)
Vent 4 Change is a company that takes waste materials, and uses them to produce beautiful notebooks. Some items are made from recycled leather (we don’t list these, in case it creates a market). Profits also help to fund children’s education.
This ocean waste notebook is sustainably made in Europe, with green energy. It has a textured fabric cover and 200 inner pages, with the cover being made from recycled ocean plastic waste (blended with post-consumer waste).
Sucseed A5 notebooks (also in A6 size) are different colours, depending on the kind of waste each notebook is recycled with:
- Coffee Beans
- Cherry Fruits
- Lavender
- Kiwi Fruits
The books contain plain, lined and to-do list pages.
Quirky Recycled Paper Gifts from Yorkshire
StudioWald is a unique company, run by a couple who print unique paper goods in Yorkshire, to save trees and give you something interesting to write on! Most FSC-certified paper is just from fast-growing plantations, grown with pesticides, that do little to support native wildlife. So if you can, it’s always good to choose post-consumer recycled paper goods instead.
This pretty A5 notebook contains 48 recycled paper pages, ideal for notes, sketches, lists and doodles. It also has a clever folder to keep the book in, and provide somewhere for extra paperwork.
Designed, printed and finished in Yorkshire, the cover contains a little cotton, and it’s secured with a thick black rubber band closure, packed in a biodegradable corn/potato starch bag.
A Recycled Paper Garden Diary
The gardener’s diary is open-dated, and shows a month to view, with enough pages to last a year. Ideal to make a note of planting dates and garden reminders, and to refer back, when complete.
Before planting, learn how to make your garden safe for pets. Avoid facing indoor foliage to gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
Recycled Paper Recipe Notecards
Recipe Notecards are sold as a set of four blank cards, with vegan vegetable soups on the reverse side of each illustration. Once the card has been used, the recipient can tear the perforated edge, to keep the recipe.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets.