Thursday 30 January 2014

Rubbish books.

For the last few weeks I have been working with rubbish. I do not mean the content of some books that cross my bench, more the concept of making standard books from recycled materials.

Living and working in London has many benefits if one is looking for rubbish. The streets are no longer paved with gold. Pizza boxes and delivery boxes from a well river in South America, crunch underfoot like beige snow.


I am as much of a fan of recycling as the next person. We sort out the plastic from the paper, the metal from the glass, wait for the dilly cart to take it away to be pulped, mashed, sorted and made into new plastics, new bottles, new cans and new paper. All good stuff.

However, it is in my nature to think, to ask why?

Why pulp corrugated packing boxes?

Having immersed the side of a packing box in a vat of water for 15 minutes I was able to de-laminate the corrugations leaving, me with a number of sheets of paper. Simple stuff. No mashing, no pulping etc.


While the new sheets were drying sections were folded and pressed. 


Sections sewn.


After the end papers were tipped on rounding and backing.


After secondary sewing, spine linings, bonnet (both with paper from the de-laminated corrugated board) and a bit of this and that we end up with......




Welcome to my Rubbish Books. I love the graphics and they appear to be very popular with my friends.