Reasons to Choose Recycled Paper Notebooks

Good Tuesday notebooks (also sold on Etsy) are beautifully designed, and printed on recycled paper, and sold in plastic-free packaging.

Although FSC-paper is better than normal, it’s even better to choose notebooks made from post-consumer waste, to use up waste paper, save trees and stop horrible smells at landfill, caused by methane gas from rotting paper.

Office Notebook (made from elephant dung!)

Paper High sells these beautiful notebooks with a difference. They are made from a blend of recycled paper and elephant dung! Use with plastic-free ballpoint biros.

These note books have a serious side. Abroad, wild elephants are often harmed, due to trampling on crops. So by paying local villagers to collect the dung, they see elephants as income opportunities (and friends) rather than competing for food.

You are also helping to provide income for a mostly female team of artisans in Sri Lanka who produce the  notebooks.

So each notebook has unique flecks, depending on what your elephant friend ate that day! And as the average elephant eats around the same as us chomping down 300 cans of baked beans each day, that’s a lot of dung!

CoffeeNotes (notepads from old 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.

About Blanks (unique notebooks with upcycled covers)

About Blanks is a company based in The Netherlands, which covers FSC-certified notebooks with covers, made from old books that would otherwise get thrown in the rubbish.

The founder has this business idea, when he discovered a pile of books from the 1940s in his local library, that had been ‘written off’. Thinking this was a shame, he took them home and upcycled them into beautiful sketchbooks, and the rest is history!

This company also employs people with disabilities and poor job prospects to make the books, ensuring they get paid work and good lifestyles. Who needs Basildon Bond?

Obviously each notebook is unique, so makes a lovely gift! The thick blank cream pages are ideal for notes, doodling or sketching. The covers are all upcycled, donated from various libraries.

This company is based just over the water in beautiful Rotterdam. Facing the northeast port of Hull (Yorkshire), it’s the largest port in Europe and due to its modern skyline, is known as ‘Manhattan on the Maas’. It’s not all tall buildings though, as the airport is below sea level!

Issues with Book Waste in England

Due to millions of books being sold each year in England, book waste is a huge issue. Many books that don’t sell well get pulped (others end up in discount stores).

One way to reduce book waste is simply to make use of your local library (ask the librarian for a book you would like to read, often it will get ordered in – authors still make royalties).

If you have unwanted books, you can donate them to libraries or charity shops (choose ones that don’t test on animals).

For books that are too damaged, just remove the cover (due to the glued spine) and recycle the pages with normal household recycling). You can then either bin the covers, or take a leaf out of this company’s book, and turn them into craft projects!