What is the environmental impact of whiteboard notebooks compared to paper notebooks? Our survey found that GreenBook users save an average of 300 pieces of paper per year. In this blog, we list the numbers on paper usage. Because you can only use a piece of paper once, it is possible to calculate the impact of paper use. In contrast, the impact of our erasable notebooks depends on how long and how intensively you use them.
Material
Because you can reuse them, a standard GreenBook has only ten erasable pages. That's already a lot less than a typical notebook with about two hundred paper pages! Plastic is deliberately used in the production of GreenBook. Indeed, since the pages are reusable, it is important that the cover and the rings last just as long. With previous cardboard covers, we noticed that they started to wear out after a while. They got scratched and the edges crumpled. This is not the case with our current, solid plastic covers. The cover and rings can last for years.
The pages will be the first to show signs of use. Depending on how (often) you use GreenBook, the pages may need replacement within 2 to 3 years. We are working toward sturdier pages that are even more erasable and last longer. Furthermore, we package your order in recycled unbleached paper, so no disposable plastic.
Volume
Did you know that paper products contribute 8% of the water footprint of Dutch society? (Source: Hoekstra: The water footprint of modern consumer society.) In Europe, we use an average of 160 kilograms of paper per person per year(wikibooks). The production of this takes 4200 liters of water, 3 trees, 260 liters of oil and 640 kilowatts of energy (converted using The Guardian's figures). For the production of erasable notebooks, no trees are cut down and virtually no water is used.
Lifetime
You can recycle paper about five to six times, with the quality decreasing each time. This takes a lot of energy, which goes not only into the recycling process itself, but also into logistics. Furthermore, in recycling paper, water is polluted and halogens and bleachers are often added to make the paper look whiter.
Reusing an erasable page has no additional environmental impact; recycling paper does.
Paper is a finite product, a whiteboard notebook is a circular product. This does not mean it is infinite, but it does mean that the product is made for years of use and all of its parts are recyclable. All of our notebooks can go in the plastic waste. Then new whiteboard notebooks can be made from them.
Pen
The pen is made in Germany from recyclable pure polypropylene and filled with water-based ink. The blue and black pens are refillable with refill stations.