Did you know that if a book has a non-leather cover, it doesn’t actually guarantee it’s vegan? I found this out recently, when I discovered our manufacturer uses 'animal glue' as standard practice. Animal glue is a popular adhesive and it's used in a wide variety of applications, including the manufacture of ‘paper over board’ products. These include:  Covers on hardback books Covers on wire-o bound books Lever arch files & ring binders Box files and Board games It's extracted from collagen, a protein component found in hides, bones and connective tissue of pigs and cattle and then graded for different uses...

Name Ree-eco-vid? It's actually pronounced recovered and it relates to paper fibre types, which are defined as either recovered or virgin. We like trees and it's our vision to: divert as much waste material away from landfill and avoid using new virgin materials (where possible) through the creation of our products. Slogan Prior to launching, I looked into registering RECYCLED, NOT VIRGIN.™ as a trademark, to use alongside our reecovid brand name. I contacted Virgin Enterprises' patent attorney to advise them of our pending trademark application and they said "NO"!  We’re a small start up company and have genuine reasons why we wanted to use the word ‘virgin’...

Books Much to my surprise, I discovered that books can't usually be recycled (along with other paper recycling), because of the glue that's used to bind them. However there are some local authorities (apparently) where books can be collected and some paper mills process these by removing the spine first (before throwing this away) and then using the paper and card. So this didn't really seem like a viable green option. Wire-o bind  As chief eco-worrier, I also wanted to design a product that could be re-used, meaning wire-o bound books weren't really an option either. Rings I was mindful these can add...