Going "Green" what if....

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Baer Charlton

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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We're all playing around with the "what if"s or "what do you think will.." ideas. So here is one that I've been kicking around for about 10 years...

In Northern New Mexico, land of open spaces and lots of sunshine New Mexico Moulding will be opening for business. This new independent upstart company is setting themselves apart from the ground up.
Jane and Merium Taylor-Maide, undertook the smallest carbon footprint of any manufacturing company today. Even months before opening their doors for business they have garnered huge awards and recognition ranging from the Eco Nut and Tree fringe to the International Architectural Design Association. The Kyoto Treaty Consortium has even given them the first 2050 Award for "Zero Carbon Footprint".

How did they do that? Starting with an all volunteer army to hand dig all of the footing for the foundation and geo-thermal heat exchange, to erecting the largest Straw-bale structure in the world. The 180,000 sq foot building with a total Photo-Voltaic roof made from recycled tin cans, Volkswagen bodies, gum wrappers and Harley Davidson engines generates 268% of its energy needs, the excess is delivered back down the grid to need low income and pensioned retired framers.

Says, Ms. Taylor-Maide, "We export electricity, what water we use is recaptured, cleaned up and used for landscape watering. Rain water is captured and held separate to water the truck garden the employees will have to augment their food source or donate as they feel fit." Her partner Ms Taylor-Maide contributed, "We've tried to think of everything in the terms of how we interact with the earth."

And so they seem to have done. A full 35% of their Moulding line is made from Bamboo with soy paint and finishes. The machinery is high output from low energy input, mirroring the commitment to LED and compact florescent lighting throughout the plant. 60% of the Wood mouldings will be coming from the Gum Tree forest farms in the local area. "The farthest we want to reach out and transport, will be the Hybrid Poplar lumber coming from the Oregon/Idaho region" points out S. Max Downs lead moulding designer. Although there is some 20% coming from China at this time, it is certified "Lead Free", but will soon be replaced with moulding from San Salvador, cutting the shipping pollution quotient by nearly 84%.

All of the sawdust in the manufacturing stage is captured and made into Kraft paper then folded in to Cardboard for their shipping needs.

"Our one down fall, that we haven't figured out" bemoans the Taylor-Maides, "is our lack of trucks to ship directly to peoples door step for free. We will try UPS, but framers across the nation are turning to the 'Free Lunch' of shipping".
 
Are you serious? Will they be at either show? If not how do we get more info?

WAY TO GO!!!
 
Baer- That reminds me of an interview sketch on the old Bob and Ray radio show. They were talking to the owner of a paper clip factory where all the paper clips were produced by hand yet sold at competitive prices....
:popc: Rick
 
I think you might be onto something. For the longest time religious wackos were always the easiest target to separate fools from their money. Maybe now there is a whole new crop of the pathetically naïve. Even with all this self sufficiency I’m sure Midas would be hesitant to buy any frames from a plant like this. But hey, tack on a million dollar story like this one and you might have just romanced the customer right out of their life savings.

I had a customer recently bring me two plastic bags back to the shop asking me to reuse them. This angle won’t have a huge marketable lifespan so it might just be the time for a product like this.
 
Contrary to Jay's cynicism, I think a company that not only sells sustainable products but is itself "green" is a great selling point. I had a customer just the other day asking about bamboo frames because she's very big into recycling and sustainability -- and this is in the midwest! I imagine the demand for green products and support for green companies will be even greater on the coasts.

Baer: Please post more information on this company if you hear more, or invite the owners to post.
 
Actually Bill, they are working closely with Cadillac Plastic to come out with a more durable acrylic like OP3 Museum, at a quarter the cost, and up to 60x120" sheets.

But you're getting the hang of this.

There is another interesting and true twist that could get thrown in to this story....

It seems that when the palm trees in the Florida Keys hit 40', up they come.... by mandate..... can anyone guess where they go?..... yeah, land fill.
There was a small group who had a mobile sawmill and were slicing the trunks into boards. I even got my hands on some picture frame moulding in 2002... it was beautiful stuff.
A 40' palm in the typical 7 species of the Keys, is about 10 years..... I'm not sure the framing industry could keep up with the amount of linear feet that would come out of the Keys and South Dade County..... like I said, just an interesting thought.

please continue
 
BaerI read it and thought your post was for April 1st

We have a Waste Disposal Co that touts itself as "Green"

They prove it by putting about 5 pcs of paper in with my bill that promptly fill up their dumpsters
 
Bob, yes, we have the same Waste company here too....

I think of things of "change" that will come out of 2008, "Green" is going to become better defined and some of the current "Green" companies and their products will be defined better on the "Black" or "Red" lists.

IF: there was a company that you currently do not do business with, and does not have delivery to your door other than UPS... and produce a line made from Bamboo or re-claimed Palm.. and it looked nice....

1) Would you take the company on and give wall space?
2) Do you think your customers would care?
3) More importantly, would YOU care?
 
Natalya, its not cynicism its prophetic. You want more information about a company that doesn't exist. That proves that this industry is just waiting for an angle like this. We sell a wood product for goodness sake. This is a global warming trophy, second only to the oil crowd. Make up some crap about a smaller carbon foot print in the delivery system and you just knocked it out of the park.

1) If they look ok.
2) Some would pick them over anything else.
3) No.
 
Hey why preservation frame if we won't be here!

What is wrong with trying to preserve what we have?

Use resources better?

Hey go chop another tree out of the rain forrest. What does it matter to you ? You won't be here!

Sorry! I fell for it hook, line and sinker! Man I was ready to change all my samples. Seems to me it works with the whole "do no harm", preservation principles we ( some of us) are trying so hard to get a hold of.

So anyway carry on glue it to a piece of shirt board, frame it in teak manufactured in a third world country for pennys and send me my sign. I guess I need it.
 
Here in the capitol of California, in the "up and coming" part of a rapidly gentrifying town, where being environmentally conscious is a status symbol, I can TOTALLY market such a product if it existed.

Heck, just before leaving Aaron Bros, we completely re-set our sketchbook isle with Strathmore's Windpower Paper. I was laughing the entire time about a paper product that tried so hard to present itself as part of an environmentally friendly scheme, but there it is. It's probably selling well too.

You see, here's the thing:

Consumers aren't retarded. They know in the back of their mind that it's a scam. It's just that everyone's aware of the changes in the environment, and of the problems caused by our dependence on our current energy source. They want desperately to do something about it, but not desperately enough to make the necessary sacrifices required to actually make a difference.

So in comes the marketing team who sees a need that can be easily filled. You can buy their product and feel better about how badly you are messing up the world. As long as there's no legal regulation to speak of on what is defined as "green" they can slap the label on most anything.

You need the product. Pay a little extra and buy some piece of mind along with it.
 
mikki said:
What is wrong with trying to preserve what we have?
Click to expand...

The earth has been changing long before we started helping it along and it will keep changing long after we are gone. I'm not suggesting we should keep up mass polution but all you greenies out there neeed to grasp the fact that the globe was warming before the industrial revolution(see my previous sentance accepting we are helping it along). Where there is desert now was once an ocean or a fertal forest. Where fertal forests are now used to be baren glacial plains. Change is part of ecology. Even if we stopped polution all together the earth would change. If we were not here the earth would change. If we tried to make the earth stop changing it would probably change even faster.

OK I'm done ranting. I'm gonna go eat my individualy wrapped disposable lunch then chop a bunch of non-replenishable wood frames.
 
Baer,
A friend of mine collects Palm tree trunks that have died, and carves out totem poles with them.
They are really pretty, but it's soft wood, so they are better suited to display indoors.
I've often wondered what a picture frame would look made out of them?

I go to Costa Rica a lot, and it's amazing what they do with the palm fronds. They can make these large structures with a woven palm roof, that will not leak in a monsoon.
I've thought about what a mat made out of palm fronds would look like?


Since we are in the wood consuming business, and the resources of wood are dwindling, I would welcome a product like bamboo moulding that is a renewable resource.

I was kidding on turning beer bottles into picture glass, but wouldn't it be great if someday we could recycle the tons of scrap glass that we throw away, and turn it back into picture frame glass again?
 
surferbill said:
I was kidding on turning beer bottles into picture glass, but wouldn't it be great if someday we could recycle the tons of scrap glass that we throw away, and turn it back into picture frame glass again?
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Speaking of that, has anyone ever found someone that will take all this scrap glass of ours? It just kills me to throw it away, but no-one around here will take it, either. I called the local glass shop and they said they throw all of theirs away too, for the same reason.....no-one will handle it. They said they could probably take the "flat glass", that goes into house windows waaaay out to the landfill to their glass recyling bin, but to keep it seperate and then to handle it, and then pay to recycle it, makes it prohibitive.

We recycle cardboard and plastic and plastic bags and newpapers, etc, and glass bottles, but not picture glass....sometimes it' ain't easy being green!
 
Hold on Bill trying to reach one of my dinosaur friends to see how that environmental change worked out for him. Da** he's not answering his e-mails.

If the worst I get called is a greenie (and I'm not on the kindergarten playground) I guess I will try to live with it.

All I'm saying is I think it would be nice to take care of the planet a little but I thought it was good to take care of my kid to so maybe I just care.

Now I will take my tea and go to the recycling center. Yes I sort and save paper from my shop too.
 
mikki said:
Hold on Bill trying to reach one of my dinosaur friends to see how that environmental change worked out for him.
Click to expand...

So we can now blame that on global warming too. If so, what caused that and what could have been done to stop it?
 
Mikki,

You had better thank those dinosaurs - it's their extinction and environmental changes that led to the rise of mammals. Even more important, the environmental changes (warming) around 12 million years ago that deforested much of the African Continent created the savannas that allowed the apes, who could adapt to hunting and eating meat (sorry Edie), to evolve into the hominids that resulted in us.
 
Pat Murphey said:
Mikki,

You had better thank those dinosaurs - it's their extinction and environmental changes that led to the rise of mammals. Even more important, the environmental changes (warming) around 12 million years ago that deforested much of the African Continent created the savannas that allowed the apes, who could adapt to hunting and eating meat (sorry Edie), to evolve into the hominids that resulted in us.
Click to expand...

That big monolith didn't hurt either.
2001monkeys.jpg
 
Actualy, we can blame global warming on the dinosaurs. Yup, that's right, it's their fault. I'm sure that I'm not totaly correct about this but isn't it the broken down animal remains and vegetation from that era that is now our "fossil fuel"? So if it wasn't for the dinosaurs dying off we wouldn't be running our cars on petrolium. Of course we would probably be burning coal instead or does that come from the dinosaurs too? Just some more nonsensical bs to throw into the debate.
 
"melting down soda and beer bottles, and turning them into perfect lites of non-glare, conservation clear, and museum glass."

This could be a real accomplishment, especially in our area where nearly all soda bottles are made from plastic. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, turning plastic into glass.......... :D
 
Jay H said:
Natalya, its not cynicism its prophetic. You want more information about a company that doesn't exist.
Click to expand...

Ooops, silly me.:icon19:

OK, I'll play now that I've re-read the rules. They've set up an arrangement with their shipping company where, when it delivers the moulding to you, they'll pick up your matboard drops and return them to the factory. Once there the boards are reconstituted into brand-new matboards. A sophisticated sorting systems automatically separates incoming boards by manufacturer and material (ragmats in one area, alphacellulose in another, paper in another).
 
aah yes, the Philosopher's Stone.... or what ever it was to turn lead into gold...

which one family did . . . . the Rothchilds.
 
erick said:
Don't get your wallet out just yet.. turns out they're under investigation.
Click to expand...

great link erick, but it's more like "don't get your wallet out yet unless you want to start this company."

It is a speculative idea written to create discussion about "Green", and what that my mean to us as framers, and to our customers.

the concept of building a 100% carbon neutral without off-sets building is very doable.... in some counties. Southern Colorado, Norther NM, and some East NV counties have seen the great potential in attracting business that would like to be that cutting edge. [there is a straw-bale building being built to house a server room that will house a "Hosting Company". They already have a couple of T-1 like lines in and will be adding more. Their clients use huge band width that will be partially supplied by a PV field array of 200 Keocera panels on trackers, and two wind generators, grid tie, and a 50,000 watt fuel cell generation system.]

So don't look for this company on the vendor floors in Vegas.... yet.
 
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