A family-owned print business in Dorchester has combined upcycled coffee cups with waste from food and textile industries to create the award-winning eco stationery brand Coffeenotes
As one year draws to a close and another begins, for many it’s a time to review and reflect. Sarah Downey, co-owner of Epic Print in Dorchester, only has to leaf through one of her many old weekly diaries to be reminded of how busy family life was when her five sons were young. ‘Everything was written in the diary when the boys were growing up, whether it was cricket practice, tennis matches or music lessons,’ says Sarah. ‘I’ve kept the diaries because, from an archivist perspective, it gives me a really good picture of what life was like then – a snapshot of a moment in time.’
A love of stationery and the desire to jot, plan, list and doodle (‘I love doodling… my notebooks are full of them!’ adds Sarah), combined with a passion for recycling, is what inspired Sarah and her husband Mark to launch Coffeenotes last year – a collection of sustainable notebooks, pads and planners made from upcycled coffee cups and waste from the coffee, nut, beer, textile and fruit industries.
For Sarah and Mark, both committed environmentalists, Coffeenotes couldn’t come a moment too soon. ‘In terms of climate change, we’re pretty much reaching a crisis point with our carbon emissions. This is a huge environmental issue we all need to address,’ says Sarah.
From the early days of running a print business, which the couple started in Dorset in 1991, Sarah has always made it a personal mission not to throw anything away that could be recycled, repurposed or composted. She also avoided buying anything with excess packaging. ‘I’ve always prided myself on minimising the number of bags of rubbish I put out each week – one bag has always been the target, which wasn’t easy when the boys were young, we were a family of seven. I’ve never wanted to throw away anything that might end up in landfill.’
When lockdown temporarily reduced work flow at Epic Print in 2020, Sarah and Mark decided to create a sustainable, high-quality stationery product, inspired by a discovery Mark had made some years earlier – an award-winning process devised by the James Cropper paper mill in Cumbria called Cupcycling™ that transforms takeaway coffee cups into paper.
‘Disposable coffee cups are collected from cafes across the UK. Then, in the paper mill, the plastic lining is separated from the paper and both materials are recycled,’ explains Mark. ‘More than 150 million cups have been recycled and saved from landfill through the Cupcycling scheme since it was introduced, which is an incredible achievement.’
The upcycled coffee cup paper is then transported from James Cropper to Epic Print’s HQ in Dorchester, where it is lovingly created into Coffeenotes stationery. ‘But that’s not where the journey ends,’ continues Sarah. ‘Paper has the highest recycling rate of any material, and can be recycled up to seven times, so once you’re finished with our notebooks you can add them back into the recycling process, giving them a whole new lease of life as an entirely different product – who knows, perhaps even as a recycled takeaway coffee cup!’
Sarah goes on to explain that their products celebrate the circular economy – they can be recycled, reused and repurposed, resulting in zero waste to landfill. They use no plastic in their packaging, and there’s minimum glue and ink involved in the making of the products – even the spiral binding can be recycled because it doesn’t have a plastic coating.
‘As a company we are very aware of the need to reduce our environmental impact, so we look at whether there are hidden plastics in any of our products. We also investigate energy and water use. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but we go beyond what most sustainable brands would consider. We’re a Carbon Balanced Printer, supporting the World Land Trust.’
In terms of the paper itself, Coffeenotes stationery has the kind of creamy, high-quality, fountain pen-friendly texture – or ‘tooth’ as Sarah refers to it – that makes it a pleasure to write on.
Minimalist in design, the range is divided into eight distinctive colour inspired collections, and in some cases the name of the collection nods towards the additional waste products combined with the recycled coffee cups to create the cardboard covers: Café, in warm creamy textures with splatters of coffee colour, uses repurposed coffee waste; Nut, in muted soft brown, pink and yellow with subtle speckles of natural fruits and nuts, is made from repurposed agro-industrial waste, as does Fruit, in mellow kiwi, grape and cherry red colours; Beer, in rich golden and brown tones with a coarse grain texture, uses repurposed brewing waste; Tailor’s, with its camel or aubergine tweedy patterns and flecked navy wool texture, uses repurposed textile waste; and Vibrant, with it dazzling contemporary palette of bright teal, lime green and hot pink proves that recycled stationery needn't be boring. With this huge range of colours and textures there’s a collection for every ‘tribe’.
‘Everyone has their favourites – mine’s the Nut collection, I love its subtle, earthy colours,’ says Sarah. ‘As far as the different formats within each collection, we canvassed the team to find out what people wanted from their stationery. I love the planners, as you may have gathered. I like to physically write things down rather than add them to a digital calendar – much to my children’s horror! Mark, who doesn’t like to be confined, is a big fan of the plain paper notebooks. Whereas, younger members of the team like the lined notebooks and dot journals, which have grown in popularity in recent years and allow you to get creative on paper.’
They’re also finding that their notebooks are really popular among artists, who work in mediums such as charcoals, inks and pastels. ‘My brother-in-law takes them with him on his travels to jot things down, take notes, illustrate with pictures,’ Sarah continues. ‘We know how much creatives value their notebooks, so we are planning to introduce a special Artist’s notebook in the Spring, using a heavier weight coffee cup paper.’
With such creative innovation emerging at Epic Print, it’s no surprise to discover that Coffeenotes has already snapped up a prestigious stationary award. Their Tailor’s plastic free wirobound sustainable notebook, made from textile waste, was declared Sustainable Stationery Product of the Year 2022.
In 2023 they plan to launch a subscription service (so you will never run out of their gorgeous notebooks), and there are new stockists on the horizon for Coffeenotes award-winning range. So, it looks as though this innovative little Dorset stationery brand will have plenty to write home about in the coming year on its fully-recyclable paper.
The Coffeenotes range consists of notebooks, planners and notepads in a variety of colours and textures, prices start from £7.50. More details at coffeenotes.shop
