Our Eco Values: Recycled

Our Recycled Collection reflects our core values to be respectful towards our planet and also to be impactful in our actions.

Recycling is one way to tackle waste, and buying products that use recycled materials helps to support the circular economy and keep waste materials, such as plastics out of the waste stream and away from landfill and our oceans. This is one of the most eco-friendly and energy efficient ways to produce new items.

What Exactly is Meant by Recycling?

Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. Those waste materials can either be post-consumer waste or pre-consumer waste.

Post consumer waste is exactly as described: waste such as a plastic bottle, wool jumper or cardboard box that has been used and discarded into recycling bins or centres, thus avoiding being sent to landfill. These products are often single use and therefore post-consumer recycled materials are generally considered to have a greater environmental impact than pre-consumer recycled materials.

Post consumer waste includes waste that is sent for recycling and also waste that is removed from a particular environment- such as collecting rubbish. Prevented ocean plastic is one example, it is a high quality recycled plastic made from plastic that has been discarded into the waste stream and fallen from transportation or blown off landfill sites, or simply discarded into the environment as litter. It is collected from coastal areas at risk of ocean plastic pollution, making it one of the most impactful recycled resources.

Recycling post-consumer waste helps conserve natural resources. By reusing materials such as paper, glass, plastic, and metals, there is reduced demand for raw materials. The extraction of these raw materials can use a ton of energy and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Post-consumer recycled materials can be less uniform in quality and composition than pre-consumer recycled materials, which are often more homogenous and consistent.

Pre-consumer waste is a rejected material before it was even ready for consumer use. Pre-consumer is reintroducing manufacturing discards (such as defective aluminium cans, or faulty plastic bottles) back into the manufacturing process. This is commonly practiced in production industries and often considered “production efficiency” rather than recycling because it usually is recovered material waste or excess product from their manufacturing processes.

What are the benefits of recycling?

Recycling is important for many reasons, including:

What are the limitations of recycling?

Recycling still requires a significant amount of energy and resources, from transportation to sorting, cleaning, and processing materials. Additionally, not all materials are able to be recycled, and some can only be recycled a certain number of times before they must be disposed of. Contamination with food and non-recyclable materials is common adding to the difficulties.

When materials are recycled, they are often downgraded in quality, which can limit their usefulness and lead to the production of lower-quality products. This can create a cycle where materials are continually downgraded and recycled, rather than being used for their intended purpose.

The results of The Big Plastic Count send a clear and urgent message: recycling is not enough, we must turn off the plastic tap. The UK’s recycling systems cannot cope with the amount of plastic packaging waste leaving our homes (estimated to be a staggering 1.85 billion pieces per week) of which only 12% is likely to be recycled in the UK.

Too much focus is placed on recycling and making plastic recyclable rather than reducing plastic in the first place. Recycling plastics is not the silver bullet that many think it is. A circular economy needs to be built around materials that can be reused and recycled many times over, which most plastic cannot.

Recycling is only one way to deal with waste, and it is often not the best way. Waste prevention is by far the better option demonstrated by the Waste Hierarchy Pyramid:

The waste hierarchy pyramid is a ranking system that prioritises waste management options based on their environmental impact. The hierarchy is made up of five steps, with prevention at the top and disposal at the bottom:

Our Recycled Products and Materials

Recycled paper and card

Paper recycling helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It takes 70% less energy and water to recycle paper than to create new paper products from trees. Using recycled paper also prevents destruction of habitats by cutting down trees and protects biodiversity. However, paper and card cannot be recycled an unlimited number of times and after 5-7 times, the fibres will become too short to adhere to each other. At this point it will be discarded or virgin, unused paper pulp will be added to strengthen it.

Recycled paper can be made from many different materials as well as waste paper, such as industry food waste, pulped-down cotton waste from the textile industry and even single use coffee cups as featured in our stunning Coffeenotes Stationery! Coffee outlets, cafés or retailers as well as other businesses send used coffee cups to Cumbria for CupCycling™, the world’s first recycling scheme dedicated to upcycling coffee cups. The CupCycling™ process involves separating out the plastic lining and repurposing it, and then using the remaining fibres to make a signature paper for Coffeenotes.

Recycled Plastic

We stock socks, shopping, storage and lunch bags made from single use plastic bottles. You won't believe how soft and breathable the socks are by Teddy Locks! We also stock ReSpiin's stunning range of woven pouches, bucket bags, tote bags and lunch bags. These sustainably made bags bare made from recycled cement sacks. They are definitely worth a look. We also stock a range of recycled pens, pencils and stationery made from recycled plastics such as old CD cases.

Recycled plastic also is used in the packaging for many or our toiletries and cleaning products for instance Alter/Native, Mancave, Land & Water and MACK bottles.

We will soon be stocking Dog Poop Bags! With these, we have decided to give customers the choice. We will be stocking recycled bags, for all of the above reasons it is better to use recycled plastic bags than ones made with virgin plastic. We will also be stocking compostable bags. However, there are a lot of bioplastic dog poo bags on the market that claim to be compostable, so here's a quick word about which is better to use!

If, like 96% of dog owners, you dispose of the dog waste and bag into either your household bin or a public dog waste bin, choosing the recycled bags is better. The compostable ones will not compost under landfill conditions and by choosing 100% post-consumer waste recycled bags you are reducing waste, lowering carbon emissions and saving energy.

If, however you can compost the waste and bags at home, and only if the resultant compost is going to be used on NON-edible plants, choose the Beco Home Composable bags made from cornstarch. They are certified home compostable and, even if they find themselves in landfill, home compostable bags are still an environmental step up from virgin plastic. Their partly plant-based composition makes their manufacture less carbon intensive than virgin plastic, whilst reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, using a renewable resource instead.
A bit of housekeeping. You do need to be careful when composting your dog's waste as it contains harmful bacteria. The compost heap needs to have the right mix of other ingredients, be turned regularly, and reach the right temperature to kill off any of the harmful stuff in your dog's waste. You can find a composting recipe and guidance from Beco Pets here.

If you want to check which plastics can be recycled and how or even find out the hidden plastic in everyday items, have a look at our Journal: Guide to Different Types of Plastics & Hidden Plastic. For an even more in depth look at plastic and how it affects the environment and our everyday lives, our Green Guide to Plastic is worth a read.

Recycled glass

As glass is 100% recyclable and can be endlessly recycled with no loss of quality, it is one of the best materials to recycle. One estimate shows that recycling one tonne of glass can save 0.67 tonnes of CO2 emissions and can reduce air pollution by 20% and water pollution by 50%

It is also one of our favourite to stock: Milagros! These stunning glasses are handmade at a family-run workshop in Oaxaca, South Mexico. The glass is melted down and then mouth blown, and the colour, if used, is added during this process. Each piece is shaped by hand and eye using techniques that date back thousands of years - and the fact that every one is a slightly different size and shape is part of its enduring charm.

Recycled Stainless Steel

Recycled Wool and Other Materials

One of our favourite brands at Green Tulip is ReSpiin and as well as being gorgeous and useful products, the clue why is in their name! Their beautiful herringbone style wool throws are unique in the fact that their colours are the natural result of the recycled wool garments used to make it - no dyes are added of any kind. Once respun and woven, the recycled fabric makes a great quality throw with a felt like feel and just the right amount of weight, adding elegant charm to any space or décor.

Wool is naturally a durable material and when well cared for, can last for years. Fast fashion is a growing problem, with many items of clothing are being disposed of on a whim. In the UK alone, over 700,000 tonnes of clothing are sent to be recycled each year. Giving a second life to recycled wool is an important part of the circular economy.
Recycled clothing is collected from recycling banks, retailers’ take back schemes and from manufacturers’ waste and taken to recycling projects to be processed. Once there it is sorted into material type, such as wool/wool mix and cotton.

The recycled textiles are sorted into colour batches, cleaned and then broken down into fibres. These fibres are re-spun into new yarns, ready to be woven back into new fabrics.

ReSpiin use this fabric to create their  beautiful recycled wool blankets and cushions. The original wool fabrics make up the final colour - no dyes are added - and if you look closely you can even see the variety of garment colours that make up the finished yarns.



• Recycling textiles reduces greenhouse gases and saves landfill space. By reusing the yarn to create items with a long lifetime, such as our blankets + cushions, it delays and reduces the quantity of textiles that go to waste.
• Extends Wool Lifecycle Research by the ‘Centre for Colour and Textile Science’ at Leeds University has actually shown that wool products have the potential for two or more uses or ‘lives’ and a total ‘active life’ of 20-30 years.
• Container Shipping Many container ships return to India empty and often have to have water filled barrels put on board to keep the ship balanced in the water. So adding ‘cargo’ such as recycled clothing to these ships can be helpful.

Recycled Candles

Conclusion