All of the vegetable fibres
used in our brushes are harvested and the gathering and processing
of these fibres helps to support many local communities in third
world countries.
The company has an FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)
Chain of Custody Accreditation (TT/COC/1562) for wooden brush
backs and other wooden products. This means that the raw material
to produce these wooden parts can be traced back to a registered
plantation, where the timber is felled and replanted under license.
The non-FSC timber used by the company comes from managed forests
or suppliers with other sustainable timber schemes (such as the
German PEFC™ scheme).
Broom handles are now generally produced
in Brazil, but there is a continual source of concern over the
depletion of the South American Rain Forests. As an environmentally
friendly alternative, our company is delighted to be able to
offer broom handles made from bamboo, which is a plant, not a
tree. The bamboo handles are only available with threads, but
we have greatly increased the range of threaded brushes in our
2007 catalogue.
We would encourage our customers where possible
to change from buying brushes with handles fitted to those with
threaded handle holes. If a threaded brush and handle are purchased
separately, the transport costs and more importantly the related
carbon emissions, are considerably reduced. Shipping fresh air
does not make sense. All wooden brushes with threaded handle
holes are marked in our 2007 catalogue with T+ or TO in red.
For the first time the brushes in our 2007 catalogue,
which are manufactured with vegetable fibres, FSC wooden backs
or wooden backs from managed estates and also the bamboo handles,
have been marked with a green square. When purchasing these products
you are not adversely affecting the natural resources of our
planet.
The company strives to use the minimum amount of
packaging materials, and complies with the Packaging Waste Regulations.
The weight of packaging per product is available on request.
The plastic products manufactured by the company
comply with the recycling regulations.
The reduction of energy
and water used is a prime concern and air from our main extraction
system is recycled back into the production building to reduce
the loss of heat.
The company is committed to a policy, which
is sympathetic to environmental issues and strives to minimise
adverse environmental impact at all stages of production and
where possible we use environmentally harmonious components.
