Books and proofs as a whole are a recyclable product - they are classed as a clean product by the recycling companies as they understand what is in them and how to process them - so there's no need to separate the cover or spine from the pages when recycling proofs. 

There are plenty of ways you can give proofs a new lease of life, whether that's passing to a friend, or making use of them in other ways (lots of ideas below), as long as they are not sold on for a profit. In the case of finished copies of books, they can also go to charity shops or you can pop them in your local kerbside library.

If a book has well and truly reached the end of its life, then it is a paper product, and should be recycled with your other paper products. From there, each council deals with the books differently depending on who their waste company is. For a number of them, this will mean the books being shredded as a whole and then recycled into cardboard. Sometimes the glue is melted down and reused. There is also a process called de-inking that removes any of the elements such as foil or laminate and this is generally then burnt for power. 

From a recycling point of view, the less finishes on a book the better, although finishes do not make a book non-recyclable, it just needs more processing to do so. At S&S, we always consider whether the enviromental factors outweigh the aesthetic impact when creating proofs.

Although proofs can't be donated to charity or second hand bookshops in the way that books can, there are still plenty of ways to give a new lease of life to the proofs you no longer need. 

1. Lend to a friend - share your preloved proofs with a person you know will love it too

2. Use pages to add a bookish touch to scrapbooking

3. Print artwork to frame on your favourite passages

4. Create paper bouquets (they last a lot longer than fresh flowers!)

5. Create gift tags. Who doesn't love receiving a bookish gift? A gift tag made from book pages is the perfect way to wrap it all up

6. Try your hand at paper embroidery

7. Use pages to get more creative with your festive bunting

8. And of course, decoupage to your heart's content!