Sustainability (and a little bit on how our minds work...) |
Our Vision: We believe that we live in a paradoxically powerful and fragile world. As people passing through, we feel it is our birthright to use what we need and our responsibility to use only what we need and carefully at that. In all the things we make we try to ask ourselves many questions including: Can we make all of this ourselves? Can we obtain all the materials locally, ourselves? If not, can we support another local business? Are we destroying irreplaceable, rare, or ecologically important material? Can we harvest these things sustainably? Can we use the “waste” materials? Can we reduce our use of power? How can we give back to our social/ecological community? |
bundle of dogbane sticks-soon to be cords |
The Process: In an ever evolving process, we think about sustainability daily. We have switched mostly to making our own cord. This has reduced our use of purchased leather (for necklace cords) by at least half, as well as our use of silver for clasps. We only cut dead wood or prune limbs(fruit woods), never cutting whole live trees. We use every part of an animal from the meat, to the skin(leather)& bones(for the dogs). The antler we use are natural sheds found by us or our antler-obsessed friend, Jason. We also gather all our own stones, which are plentiful, from surface erosion.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: One of our main focuses has been to try to reduce our use of petroleum and coal. We are doing this by making our house and shop more energy efficient. We did this by making all our lights compact fluorescent, purchasing an energy saver washing machine, dishwasher and refrigerator, getting rid of our clothes dryer, using our wood cookstove as our only source of heat for our home, and we try to reduce our use of power tools by using hand tools as much as possible. Also, we run our diesel truck on commercial biodiesel, and are working on producing our own.
We have also worked to reuse/recycle materials wherever we can. The wood chips and small branches leftover from our woodwork go into the cookstove. The paper we use must have at least a 50% post-consumer waste content. We collect boxes from the hardware store and reuse them for our packaging. We have also started using old curtains and blankets from Wabi Sabi (a non-profit thrift store) to make cloth bags for packaging. These are being sewn by our friend Kathy O’ Conner. We also receive many materials from Wabi Sabi, such as scrap leather, glass lanterns, candles, and bells. Our friends at Wabi Sabi give us great inspiration to create art with recycled goods.
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Sean teaching Katy how to tan hides
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The future: We have also thought about what happens to our products when they have lived their life span. All of our products are non-toxic and biodegradable, or can be recycled or re-used easily. When your spoon has stirred its last pot of pasta, you can throw it in the woodstove and get some heat, put it in the compost, or give it to your kid or dog to chew on! For more information on this type of business thinking visit www.GREENBLUE.org |
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