Green Silver is an elusive quest but we have come a step closer by completing our Green Certification with Alameda County! I learned a great deal during the process. One of the things I did not know about was the environmental hazard of triclosan, the most common active ingredient in hand sanitizers and antiseptic wipes. Triclosan persists in the environment (it doesn’t break down) and accumulates to higher and higher concentrations with each step up the food chain. Virtually every creature on earth has a measured amount of this pollutant in its body fat. Triclosan is suspected of disrupting hormone function in both humans and animals. The health and environmental risks are considerable.
We thought we were being diligent by wiping down phones and counters with antiseptic wipes. We also had Triclosan in our anti-bacterial hand soap and lotion. After researching the matter, I replaced our soaps and cleaning agents with Method products, which contain no triclosan, pthalates or BPA. It really irritates me that I can’t trust the products on my grocery shelf to be safe! If you feel the same way, support the bill currently in congress that is trying to ban toxic chemicals from consumer products. Every letter makes a difference. The Environmental Defense Fund does all the leg work for you on this page called: I am not a Guinea Pig.
We are celebrating our green certification with a Facebook campaign to raise money for oil spill cleanup on the Gulf Coast. We will donate $1 to the Environmental Defense Fund for every new Facebook fan that signs up during the first 2 weeks of July, up to $1,000. Tell your friends. Together we CAN make a difference!
The oil spill crisis threatens hundreds of species. Sharing this photo of a clean, healthy pelican symbolizes our hope for a Gulf of Mexico restored to its former environmental equilibrium. The Environmental Defense Fund is committed to working on the ground with local partners and with federal officials to restore the Gulf Coast to full environmental health.
We are currently working with a group of students from San Francisco State University to obtain Green Business certification from Alameda county. The program covers solid waste, energy, water use, pollution prevention, waste-water and other general conservation efforts. As we work through the extensive check lists it is gratifying to see that we are mostly doing things right already. (We get extra credit for the flooring made from recycled tires that we installed in our order pulling area). Even so, we are adding new measures and formalizing our green practices.
A few new policies include two double sided printers and bins set next to all printers for those extra papers that get spit out. Now we can reuse them every time for printing or scratch paper. We set up a Green Team to make sure our office supplies are made from recycled materials whenever possible, to monitor bills for sudden spikes in energy or water use and to keep an eye on our daily practices like turning lights off in empty rooms and keeping trash out of the paper waste bins.
I will keep you posted on our certification progress. Right now, I need to research refillable pens and a place we can donate our old electronics to be refurbished instead of recycled…..
How do you save energy and resources?
Please keep an eye on your energy use.
Please print on both sides of papers
Green Silver is a moving target but we are moving step by step to green our office. I recently presented our entire staff with designer commuter mugs to keep at work and use all day. I think we can save about 2,500 paper and plastic cups a year by using these cups when we head out for lunch or coffee. Plus, they are so pretty! We also hung individual towels in our bathrooms and kitchen. I think we will save about 30,000 paper towels a year using real towels. I know these are baby steps, but at least we are on the right track!
30,000 paper towels saved
Some Scrap to be Recycled
Recycled Silver is in high demand these days. Did you know that 60% of the silver used in all of our handmade Bali sterling silver styles is recycled from production scraps? We never publicized this fact in the past because it seemed obvious to us that every bit of valuable silver would be melted and re-used. However, I have recently seen companies advertise this practice as proof of their Eco-friendly, Green Business practices and I wanted everyone to know that we do it too! We also recycle all the rejects and scraps that accumulate in our California office.
Before we printed our recent insert, I did a great deal of research into recycled paper. It turned out to be a slippery slope! There is recycled paper made from paper mill floor scraps (I still don’t know how I feel about that. Did they really just throw it away before or did they always use it?) and recycled paper made from post consumer waste. The latter is about twice the price of regular paper stock. In addition, recycling post-consumer paper is very resource intensive, using lots of energy and water. Some people feel that using paper from sustainably managed forests is a wiser choice.
Instead of using the recycled paper, I decided to set a “greening” budget for 2010 and try to figure out where that money will have the greatest impact on the environment. It may be best spent on recycled paper but we might get more bang for our buck somewhere else, like supporting water restoration projects in silver mining towns. I will keep you posted……
Greening is a long journey. It can often feel intimidating, especially in an industry like silver jewelry where so many factors are out of our control. In our office, we have made a commitment to move forward steadily. We are hoping that even the smallest steps will add up. When we remodeled our building, we added skylights and staggered our lighting on two grids. Now we can keep half the lights turned off during the day. We carefully separate all of our trash for recycling and composting and we shred paper waste to use as packing material. We have not found a way to eliminate the ubiquitous zip lock plastic jewelry bags that the city won’t recycle but we found a Bag Guy who recycles them for us. The number of people in our office bicycling to work has increased to the point where we need to purchase a bike rack. We also use Soy Based Ink on all of our catalog inserts.
Erin Waits for Recycling Pick Up
Last month, I purchased a metal mug to use at the local café. It sounds almost silly, but I calculated that I will save 250 paper cups with plastic tops in one year. According to Hillary Feldman at About My Planet, Americans use 16 billion paper cups a year. “The real cost of 16 billion paper cups is nearly one million tons of wood, 4 billion gallons of water, and 253 million pounds of waste. Every tree used for paper cups is also removed from the ecosystem and can no longer absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, or filter groundwater.” So maybe its not so silly….. We’ll keep you posted as our greening journey continues! Any tips?