Green Side

From single-sided paper to notebooks and envelopes

GreenSide transforms single-sided printed papers and old posters into notebooks, envelopes, and more. The cool thing is, each creation proudly includes unique traces of its previous life.

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GreenSide showing single-sided printed paper transformed into notebooks | Waste Alchemists

About the alchemists

Meet the team of GreenSide (From left to right): Anne-Pim, Leon, and Jori and I know that by now also Joris and Nick joined. So how did it start? In 2018, after finishing his studies, Léon decided to clean out his desk. Within an hour, a huge pile of printed papers covered the table: articles, reports, and old thesis drafts. That’s when he thought: “Can’t I still make use of this paper?” He noticed most pages were only printed on one side while the other side was blank… “What a shame! I’m sure this can be used for something” he thought. A few days later, the first GreenSide notebook was born.

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kilograms of single-sided printed paper

saved from getting wasted

social workplaces

involved to create the notebooks

notebooks per year

produced approximately

About the waste

The main waste used is paper. More specifically, paper that has only been used on one page and has another one waiting to be used. Little fun fact, as of 3rd of November 2025, they have over 234 paper collection points spread out over 74 cities and towns in 15 provinces (three of which are even in Belgium).

About the process

First they collect the paper from local schools by bike, then they bring it to their partners at different social workplaces. They check the quality of the paper, make sure that no personal data is shown, and transform it into new products. Then GreenSide makes their creations available to locals, initiatives and organisations (Psst! You can also have your logo being printed on them!)

About their creations

They transform the otherwise wasted paper into notebooks and the otherwise wasted posters into envelopes. And if that is still not enough, you can also get more accessories made from waste like beautiful notebook covers made from leftover leader for example.

CHECK THEIR AWESOME CREATIONS!

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Their rule of three

Sustainable, Social, and local. What does this mean? Sustainable means that all their products are made from rest material. Social means that they work together with social workplaces to give people with distance to the labour market the chance to use their skills. And finally, local means, that they aim to do all of this locally. So they collect material from area X, collaborate with social workplaces from area X , and sell them to companies form area X. This way, creating localised hubs all over the Netherlands.