Tuesday Series- Eco-Elitist-Smock Paper- from bamboo!

Welcome to the Tuesday series called the Eco-Elitist. I must apologize that I have been quite remiss about updating my blog. I was on vacation last week in Cape Cod and it was just too hard or perhaps I was just too tired to update my blog daily. What it is about vacations? I immediately hit "relax mode" and can't even stay awake past 9:30PM and then it takes me a whole day to get my life back in order when I return to "real life." I always have to do a gizzilion loads of laundry and dig out my car which is currently still caked with sand, candy, goldfish and other odd syrupy, sticky substances - evidence of all that I did to keep the kids quiet on the 5 hour car ride. Oh, did I mention that the DVD player broke mid-trip? Aaaah, memories.

Anyway, today, I'm going to multi-task and do an "Eco-Elitist" post combined with a "Designer Spotlight" post because it has been a few days since my last post. I'm going to talk about Smock Paper. They are one of my favorite stationery lines aesthetically and ethically. Smock Paper was the first print shop in the U.S to offer stationery on luxury bamboo paper. Why bamboo you ask? Although most should know by now, Bamboo is 100% sustainable. It is the fastest growing plant in the world without fertilizer or pesticides and requires very little water to grow. Bamboo also takes only 3-5 years to mature to a harvestable height versus 10-20 for most softwoods. And I bet you didn't know that bamboo puts out 35% more oxygen than hardwood trees and absorbs 4 times as much carbon as hardwood! Bamboo can also detoxify water because of its high nitrogen content and it even improves the quality of the soil. So, in sum, bamboo is a great material because harvesting it doesn't hurt the land or habitats in the vicinity and growing it doesn't ruin our ground water with chemicals. In fact, growing it helps our air and soil quality.

Smock takes their commitment to the environment a few steps further. The only use vegetable-oil-based and low-Volatile-organic compound inks (VOC). They use low VOC and citus based solvents. They recycle their photo chemistry, film, paper offcuts, and photopolymer printing plates so that empty ink cans and old rags are kept out of landfills! They recycle and compost their office waste. They use recycled packaging materials and reuse the packing materials and corrugated cardboard that they receive from their suppliers. Their retail packaging is biodegradable, tree-free, and petroleum-free.

Hold on- there's more! They also work to reduce our carbon footprint. They are entirely wind-powered through Native Energy (like us) and they are working with the Conservation Fund’s Go Zero program by “zeroing out” their business’s carbon footprint by planting trees. They even offer bus passes to employees to encourage public transportation usage. Also for their employees, they subsidize 20-week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) memberships with a local organic farm, because they believe their food shouldn't have to travel 1,500 miles to reach them! Amazing!

They donate to environmental charities such as 1% For The Planet and they partner with American Forests, a very old and terrific organization that helps slow global warming with the planting of trees.

Yes, they are amazing but their product is also beautiful and is quite hard to find a company that has both attributes- trust me I look! They got together with a 500 year-old European mill to create this bamboo paper and it is gorgeous. It's soft, thick and luxurious and letterpress looks especially elegant on this paper. And Smock Paper has this incredible talent in choosing the most sophisticated and elegant colors to use in their chic designs. By sending a beautiful card by Smock Paper, you are not only supporting a great company that is smart and innovative but also going in the right direction in producing products without harming our earth.

Now through June 30th, enjoy 15% off Smock Products, by using coupon code: smock15. We know you'll be pleased!