Strengthening the Recycling Stream

Live

Hemp Heritage

Our paper brand: journals, sketchbooks, stationery and fine art paper made from 25% hemp and 75% post-consumer recycled pulp, with no virgin wood pulp.

Hemp Heritage is where the recycling stream turns into a product people buy. Every sheet pairs long hemp bast fibre with post-consumer recycled pulp, which gives the paper its strength and texture while keeping virgin wood pulp out of the mix entirely.

The range covers sketch, drawing and watercolour books, journals, art packs, envelopes, presentation folders, business cards, adhesive labels and paper by the ream, all sold through hempheritage.com. The same stock is what Sazzy Cards prints on, so demand from one project feeds the other.

Printers, publishers and studios are welcome. We send business sample packs, talk parent sheets and press runs, and quote custom orders.

• Recycling stream
• No virgin wood pulp
• Everyday paper demand

Live

Sazzy Cards

Our greeting card project: rude cards on hemp paper, made to put stronger fibre into the recycling stream.

Created by Conner Strutzel as an Upcyx initiative. We supplied a domain and the original idea; everything from there was entirely his own work.

The premise is simple: greeting cards people actually want to receive, printed on Hemp Heritage™ paper instead of drugstore cardboard. Blunt, adult humour on stock that's thicker, more textured, and more vivid than the rack at the supermarket. As the site puts it, sustainable by nature, premium by design. Customers build their own bundles of 6 or 12 cards from a catalogue of more than fifty designs, envelopes included.

Greeting cards are a high-volume paper product, which makes them an ideal place to put hemp and recycled stock to work: every card sold is demand flowing back to the material side. And when a card is recycled, its long hemp fibres go into the stream with it, which helps the next sheet of recycled paper hold together.

Designers and artists are actively welcomed. Sazzy runs an open call for freelance illustrators and designers: download a free template package (InDesign template, bleed and safety guides, colour profiles, and a submission checklist), design a set of at least six cards, and earn royalties on every one that sells. No design degree required: the brief is simply to follow the template and make people laugh. Accepted artists also feature in Designer Drops, limited-run collections built around a single artist's work.

• Recycling stream
• Consumer paper demand
• Paid work for artists

In Progress

Convergence Composites

Our biocomposites brand: 3D printing filament and injection molding pellets made from natural fibres, starting with locally sourced hemp.

Convergence Composites is not limited to one fibre. It blends natural fibres and plant material with a bio-polymer and bio-additives into materials developed with industrial and home compostability in mind. Our current material is made with hemp bast and hurd, as 1 kg spools of 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm filament and as pellets for injection molding.

The materials are aimed at consumer packaged goods, automotive interior parts, furniture components, and prototyping as a drop-in alternative to conventional plastic, and because the fibres and additives are sourced locally, every spool and pellet carries a low carbon footprint.

Custom blends are welcome. If you have a waste stream or a spec in mind, we develop material blends to suit the application.

• Less fossil plastic
• Compostable materials
• New uses for natural fibre