CROWDFUNDING NEWS – If the Paper Guardian looks a little familiar, that’s because we told you about it a couple of years ago in 2019 when was an unsuccessful campaign. Even though the campaign didn’t succeed, people kept asking about it so they decided to relaunch and have already met their goal this time around.
What is it?
The Paper Guardian is an A5-sized paper holder with a built-in paper cutter that lets you recycle used typing paper to create a refillable notebook/clipboard that will never run out of paper.
Why do I like it?
I like the Paper Guardian because it lets you reuse/recycle paper that you would have otherwise thrown in the trash bin. I also like that has a built-in straight edge that you can use to resize 8.5 x 11 inch papers into A5-sized sheets (5-7/8 x 8-1/4in / 148 x 210 mm) that fit in the Paper Guardian’s paper holder. A5 is my favorite size to use because it’s manageable and can easily fit into bags.
Where can I find more info?
The Paper Guardian campaign ends on 12/3/21 and they have already surpassed their funding goal of $5,000. You can pre-order a Paper Guardian starting at $49. After the Paper Guardian campaign ends, rewards are estimated to start shipping in May 2022. Visit their Kickstarter page for all the details.
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Their Kickstarter calls this an “Eco Notebook” which is a little disingenuous, in my opinion. When I use a notebook, I expect the pages to stay in place so I can reference them later. This is a loose-leaf clipboard with built-in paper “storage” and it has straight edge for “tearing” paper down to size. Re-using old paper has some romantic attraction to the “paper-waste” problem but leads to the issues with using the backs of old printouts with the words bleeding through (I reuse previously-printed paper at work but never for anything I need to reference later). If you’re someone really looking at reducing paper usage, why not go electronic like the Remarkable tablet series ( https://remarkable.com/ )?
That said, I like the idea of a smaller clipboard that I can carry around in a bag without the papers getting all messed up. It looks like there are A5 clipboards with storage out there already for 1/3 of the price, I might have to get one of those as an early holiday gift to myself…
dad brought home a couple of those aluminum clipboards and several crates of triplicate forms for me to draw on without destroying the kitchen table and floors
so for thirty+ years i had a record of my bizarre thoughts and illustrations
ultimately a collapsed wall and subsequent flood destroyed all that
however it was great idea which i repeated for my boys
i’m too old school, i guess…i think better on paper
as far as the environment goes the alternative gizmos will fail and need to be recycled (of which currently only a fraction of the bulk is recovered) or dumped
paperless was a concept based on initial economy not any environmental concern…just saying
Craig, I still struggle with WANTING to be paperless/digital, but once I actually try to do that with journaling and drawing, I just don’t like it. Like you, I prefer paper and pen.
on the other hand we’ve pared down our physical library to around 3k books (mostly reference) but i looked at our digital library and today it stands at 62,959 documents or around 300gb
thankfully i cataloged and indexed everything after the first hundred or so
windows built in search is not overwhelmed like my initial investments in search engines so finding what eludes me is not difficult
hoarding digital documents takes up a lot less space than the physical
I live with someone who loves physical books. I have a whole wall of bookshelves and they are crammed full.
that is how it is supposed to be
endless numbers of books, no broken spines, no notes in the margins, no highliters and no dogeared pages
unfortunately we ran out of house