Brilliant in Its Simplicity: Recycled Paper Notebooks Save 500,000 Sheets

What if waste paper isn’t the end of a story, but the beginning? That’s exactly what the team at Green Side is showing us. With their colourful, unique notebooks, they give single-sided printed paper a second life — making sustainability visible, tangible, and fun.

Half a million A4 sheets saved from the bin

“A six-year-old child already understands what we do,” says founder Jori Lamboo. “You just get it: oh yeah, you can use both sides of a sheet of paper.”

What started as a clever idea has grown into a movement that has already saved over 500,000 A4 sheets from ending up in the trash. The secret? Simple. They make notebooks from paper printed on one side, often surplus paper from schools or companies, and reintroduce it with a creative twist.

From theory to action

After studying Business Administration in Wageningen, Jori felt it was time to not just study his ideals but to apply them. “I had so much theory about how to make the world a better place, but I wasn’t doing anything with it. I just wanted to start doing it.”

And he did, along with a team of enthusiasts. Green Side now collaborates with around 150 schools, where students not only learn about sustainability but actively contribute to it.

The collected paper is then processed in sheltered workshops, where people distanced from the labour market assemble the notebooks.

Each notebook tells a story

What makes Green Side special is that each notebook bears traces of where it came from.

“The best moment,” says Jori, “is when someone opens a notebook and exclaims in surprise: ‘Oh, how fun!’ You can see it in their body language; a kind of relief. Sustainability can also be something positive. Something light. Something that makes you happy.”

Want to get involved?

Do you use a lot of paper at your school or workplace? Green Side invites everyone to collect single-sided printed paper and send it to them. It’s completely free. And if you want to share a bit of this positive energy, you can also order and hand out notebooks: at home, in the office, or at events.

Because if children already understand, what about the rest of us?

Just like this ingenious surfboard made from 10,000 cigarette butts proves that waste can fuel innovation, Green Side’s recycled paper notebooks show how simplicity can drive sustainability from classrooms to workplaces.