Blue Ridge Eco Shop Blog : Archives for June 2008

Jun 2 2008

Removing The Toxins From Refinishing

Starting a refinishing project this summer? And can’t stand the smell? Consider using eco-friendly refinishing supplies. They work just as well as the caustic stuff, but will leave you, and the environment, feeling better.

Traditional varnish and paint strippers contain highly toxic, and smelly, methylene chloride and other caustics. The Blue Ridge Eco Shop carries Back To Nature Ready Strip which is soy based, biodegradable and water-soluble. It is also easy to use, for us non-technical furniture refinishers. The paste changes colors when it is ready to be scrapped off. Simply spray with Ready Strip wash and scrap away. Ready Strip Plus takes off up to 5 layers of paint and vanish with one application.

Recently, a UVA School of Architecture professor and his student, came into the store to buy supplies to refinish several pieces of furniture. The next day he came back and was beaming about how well the stripper worked, ‘better than the caustic stuff,’ he said. And bought an extra gallon bucket of the stuff. At the Eco-Shop, we’ve refinished a few pieces of furniture including a chest, our dining room table and benches and most recently, a bed at the Habitat Store (thank you to those who attended our demonstration at the Habitat Store!) and have had success across the board.

Once finished stripping and sanding, try one of our many Velvit Oil stains to protect your project. The Velvit Oil is soy based, rather than petroleum based. It actually bonds with the wood, which leaves you with a long lasting product, one that won’t need to be refinished. Leaving your finished product, VOC-free and beautiful.

Jun 6 2008

2008 Best Green Small Business Recipient

I am excited to announce, that the Blue Ridge Eco Shop is to be awarded the Virginia Sustainable Building Network’s 2008 Best Green Small Business award! VSBN is the only statewide organization that brings together representatives from diverse sectors who are interested in building healthy, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly buildings and sustainable communities.

The Blue Ridge Eco Shop and the other 2008 Green Innovation Award recipients will be recognized at the VSBN Annual Meeting on June 25th in Richmond, Virginia.

Since we opened our doors last August, we have quickly gotten involved in the green and sustainable community around Central Virginia. The Eco-Shop is one of the founding sponsors of the US Green Building Council’s Charlottesville chapter, on the steering committee for the 2008 Charlottesville and Albemarle County Earth Week activities, a member of the Charlottesville Regional Environmental Education Coalition steering committee, and one of the “Bakers Dozen” advisory board for Better World Betty. The Eco-Shop has additionally been giving education and training workshops and talks around the community over the past year.

More recently, we partnered with the Habitat Store of Charlottesville to provide green alternatives within the Habitat Store’s Harris Street location, expanding the Eco-Shop and giving back to the community more directly.

I am excited and honored to be the 2008 Best Green Small Business, and look forward to what we can do in year two!

Jun 16 2008

How Could We've Known?

My idea of an eco-shop is providing more than just environmentally friendly products. I believe in educating myself and others. I believe in promoting and selling products that come from companies that are good for the planet, but also good for the people as well. I believe in fair wages, fair working conditions and hours, and fair benefits. This should be a standard, in my mind, for all businesses large and small.

In the shop I get asked frequently why I don’t carry this brand or that brand, but I carry a competitors. I am very particular on what I do carry. It’s important to me to not only provide a safe, environmentally-friendly, healthy and affordable products (which can be tough enough), but to also only carry brands and companies that I know and trust. It’s my job to research companies and make sure they are both ethical to the environment and to their workers. It’s an atribute of a small store that I can know every single product in the shop and know about the company who makes it. I hope that’s what my customers value in the shop as well. And yes, that may mean I might not carry a specific brand. If they can’t provide credible background on the working conditions of the plants and the ingeridient that go into their products, I won’t stock them.

I can understand that in larger retailers and companies, not every employee is going to know everything about the product and the process in which it is made. But that doesn’t mean somebody in the company shouldn’t. In an effort to share, I am pasting an eye-opening list of "7 Corporations You’ll Want to Avoid" from Co-Op America. I was surprised by many of them. It is dishearting and discusting the low standards of these companies. Please read on:

1. Which major retailer saw its New Dehli factories raided in October 2007 by authorities acting on a tip from an undercover newspaper reporter who found children as young as 10 sewing garments for a children’s apparel line? They also had 2 deaths in one year of under age workers on the job.(The GAP)

2. Which fast food company (owner of KFC and Taco Bell) received the dismally low score of 1 out of 100 in the "Climate Counts Company Scorecard," a report that that judged companies on their commitment to reversing climate change? (YUM! Brands)

3. Which popular retailer of apparel and toys got busted for the ninth time by Students and Scholars against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), which uncovered sweatshop abuses (unpaid wages, illegal working hours, unsafe working conditions) at a producer factor in China in 2007? (Disney)

4. Which electronics company was revealed in November 2007 to be at least partly responsible for more than 100 current or former Superfund sites, some in the USA? (Superfund sites are locations designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as being so contaminated by toxic chemicals that they are dangerous to human health.) (GE)

5. Which chocolate-maker, long under fire by social justice advocates concerned about rampant child labor in the cocoa industry, has also become a dominating force in the bottled water industry, generating tons of plastic-bottle waste, and drawing criticism for polluting groundwater near its bottling facilities? (Nestle–again, some in the USA)

6. Which popular catalog company was the subject of a 2006 National Labor Committee report documenting abuses at its Saidan factory in Jordan including: human trafficking of guest workers, confiscation of passports, 118-hour work weeks, wages below the legal minimum, no sick days, and unsanitary working conditions? (LL Bean)

7. Which chemical company was named the number one polluter in America by a May 2008 report from the Political Economy Research Institute called the “Toxic 100 index”? (The index is based on EPA Toxics Release Inventory data, and ranks the nation’s largest companies based on the quantity of their emissions, relative toxicity of chemicals emitted, and proximity to population centers, among other criteria.) (DuPont)

Jun 17 2008

Responsible Shopper

I love writing Blogs that move you all to action! I received an overwhelming response on the "7 Corporations You’ll Want to Avoid" blog. For those that want to get more information, Co-Op America, a non-profit organization, is in the process of putting together a "Responsible Shopper" Guide and Website.

Check it out here: http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/

Feel free to e-mail them with comments and suggestions as this is a new website and they are looking for feedback!

Jun 19 2008

Fair Reporting

In an effort to be fair and just, I wanted to post a link to a statement from LL Bean that says the reports about them unfairly treating their employees in Jordan are unjust:

http://www.llbean.com/customerService/aboutLLBean/jordan_statement.html

Just keeping you informed!

Jun 28 2008

Best Green Small Business in Virginia

This week was a whirlwind for us! Not only did we go to Richmond to be presented the "Best Green Small Business" Award by the VSBN, but it was also the first time I left the store to someone. Thank-you to my mother-in-law, and our patient customers, for covering the store to allow both Hakon and I to go to the awards presentation!

The Virginia Sustainable Build Network’s awards and annual meeting was very exciting. Governor Kaine welcomed the crowd and laid out his plans for focusing on the environment and alternate energy in 2009. It was interesting to hear him say that when he was campaigning in 2005, he didn’t receive any questions on the environment nor energy. A lot has changed in the two and a half years he’s been in office.

Thanks again to our customers and VSBN for all of the support. We look forward to serving the community for years to come!

Blue Ridge Eco Shop

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