Designing a Compostable Book

I was approached by a duo of Design Leadership MA students to realize their concept for a plantable workbook about managing grief. It quickly revealed itself to be much more complicated of a project as originally thought—it COULD just be be regular paper with a generic seed-paper cover, but it could also work through many relevant considerations: does regular paper have bleaching elements that would be toxic to soil Would the seeded paper introduce an invasive species? Could the amount of content be reduced without losing its effect? To the extent possible, I addressed each of these concerns to arrive at a well-considered end result.

An internal spread inviting the reader's action

Reducing unnecessary content

The first step was editing down the lengthy amount of written content—a good amount of it was unnecessary to the piece as a whole, and for an object that needs to fully decompose, less material is optimal. The original makers of the book were totally open to having the book edited, which helped a lot. Once I removed content that wasn’t necessary to the overall theme of the book (managing grief in a healthy and productive way), I began researching how paper decomposes. This book—‘Root and Branch’—is intended to be planted after working through it, and will grow something new in return. A beautiful metaphor. However, for that to happen successfully, the paper has to be just right.

What goes into a piece of paper

For a conventional piece of printing paper, a mechanical bleaching process (called ‘brightening’) takes place to produce the crisp, white sheet we all expect. This is mostly brought to fruition by mixing the paper pulp with hydrogen peroxide and sodium dithionite. These two compounds together prohibit the makeup of the pulp from absorbing visible light, keeping the paper bright for longer. Mechanical bleaching is better than it used to be—conventionally, chlorine was used, which is efficient. But produced with a bright piece of paper were chlorinated dioxins which are recognized as a ‘persistent environmental pollutant’ and cancerous to humans.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, newsprint can either be manufactured with recycled paper fibers or may be created with fresh timber. Both options involve turning the wood or fibers into a pulp, then dried. No bleaching, which gives it the distinct light gray shade associate with newsprint.

The result is a lightweight paper with minimal embedded-energy and use of chemicals. For a book that needs to hold up during use, then easily decompose: newsprint is perfect.

Ink & printing considerations

Regular, petroleum-based ink contains a high amount of ‘VOCs’—volatile organic compounds. These can be carcinogenic and toxic to ecosystems. In the case of this book, the ink is very important because it has to be buried into soil—and toxic ink would not be optimal. Vegetable-based ink is a great solution because not only are soybeans and rice bran renewable resources, but the colors are reported to be brighter and more accurate than petroleum-based ink.

Utilizing a Risograph to print the books is perfect: it is energy efficient, while rapidly printing many copies, and uses rice-bran ink. The Risograph works by burning a master copy of a single page and rapidly printing copies by the use of a single-color ink drum.

Book materials and packaging

Design decisions

For a book that relies on inspiring writing prompts, the typography is important. I selected Domaine Text Light, a thin serif with a natural, sensitive feel. Anything that isn’t a writing prompt is typeset in the normal style of the font, while prompts are set with an underline—indicating the griever’s action.

The book arrives in a reusable kraft paper envelope, and comes with a charcoal stick to write with. Including the charcoal stick not only avoids the use of a toxic ink pen, but acts as a fertilizer once the book is planted!

Conclusion

After this significant amount of research,’Living Grief’ is now ready to enter production. We will print the internal pages with the Risograph, and use a wholesale seed paper manufacturer for the cover. ‘Seedlings’ offers a variety of seed types, one of which is Black Eyed Susan—perfect for initial distribution in Maryland.

Can’t wait to plant the first copy and watch new life grow!