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Ecojot is featured on sprig.com today. Hooray and have a great weekend! it's a long one here so we have a few things planned. one of them is to go see the Greenpeace Ship Arctic Sunrise, which is docking here for 3 days. Check out greenpeace.ca for more info + insight into one of the world's most effective environmental agencies for change.
i love this drawing lily did...
this wonderful salvaged area of toronto was founded in 1832 by Brothers-in-law William Gooderham and James Worts, the Gooderham and Worts Distillery eventually became the largest distillery in the British empire. Set on 13 acres in downtown Toronto (about 15 minutes from where i live), the forty plus buildings constitute the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture in North America. The Distillery District is a national historic site. www.thedistillerydistrict.com
The area’s rebirth has been dedicated to promoting arts, culture and entertainment. galleries, artists from all corners of the arts spectrum, theatres, restaurants, cafes and boutique retailers abound.
Visit their new blog at distillerydistrictnews.com to get the inside scoop on events happening at the Distillery District!
does anyone know what herb this is?
i've always wanted to live by the ocean so this is the closest i will get to it for now. Lake Ontario, about 10 minutes drive from me, 20 minute cycle. Friday we watched some great kite surfers, looked for 'sea glass' and made sculptures out of stones. It was a lot of fun and we didnt even go swimming. Next time.
more sculpture tomorrow.....
i had tagged south of the sahara as she features really interesting stuff that's happening in South Africa. She also put us on her blog today, so that's 5 we were on today, not 4. WOW! Thanks Kirsty!
we were astoundingly on 4 blogs today... that's great and a HUGE THANX to all who wrote such wonderful comments. Green is definitely the way to go. Have a great weekend one and all!
www.treehugger.com
www.yourecosource.com
gottheknack.blogspot.com
thegreenwivesclub.com
Our ecojot website is currently under major construction and i wrote a piece about ecojot and how it came to be. Here we go...
Ecojot came into fruition in the early Spring of 2007. Actually it was Mark’s initial idea about doing a line that was 100% recycled that started the ball rolling and the seeds to be sown. Watching trends and keeping abreast of new and current events around us it seemed that the world was changing & a rather “done” theme was rearing its head again.
The word “green” started to appear more often and it seemed large companies were becoming aware of this issue, not since the early ‘90’s where it was kind of a mini trend but died down in the wake of mass consumerism.
Hybrid cars, recycled paper, fsc certified, Al Gore, GHG’s and climate change - all these words now so part of our everyday vocabulary, but back then in March they were just words.
From a sprinkling of an idea to a meeting of minds. Carolyn and Mark had initial discussions about doing an eco-friendly line and so ecojot was born. Carolyn started working on fresh designs and names. Earthwrite, papergarden, enviromint, writegreen, ritepaper, eco lily and ecojot were some of the choices that came up.
ecojot was unanimously agreed upon and work began. This was like starting from the ground up, even though miragepaperco. had been around since 1994. Paper had to be researched, cover stock had to be chosen, veggie based inks and glues had to be found. Designs had to be finalised, packaging sourced and a website developed.
At times we felt like pioneers in the wilderness, walking on undiscovered land. People would look at us with eyes wide open and mouths agape. “You’re looking for what? bio-degradable shrink wrap!!! Oh that’s unheard of.” or signage that’s composed of something other than vinyl. “You want to print your signs on unbleached cotton canvas - never been done before!!” The tiniest details seemed the hardest to achieve. We still cannot find a barcode sticker manufacturer that uses 100% recycled sticker stock, BUT HEY WE ARE TRYING!.
The inner paper was not hard to find. It seems 100% recycled paper is streets ahead of other products on the market. Check out www.environmentalbychoice.com to see how many trees we are saving and how little energy the paper mill is using in producing the paper used in our books. In basic terms we are saving about 119 trees per an average ecojot order.
The designs that started emerging were perfect for the message we wanted to convey. Words like rethink, re-use ,renew and recycle - serious but executed in a fun style. A garden with butterflies and dragonflies. 100% Recycled doesn’t have to be dull and plain. Dots and stripes, signature patterns for mirage and now for ecojot. Nature inspired us and we hopefully, are giving back. A small percentage of ecojot sales will go back into the environment.
We at ecojot are concerned citizens but at the time we don’t want to come across as too ‘preachy’. We are promoting a strong message but we are also running a business at the same time. We’re proud of the choices we’re making and we feel really good about our products and our manufacturing processes. Our plant in Scarborough, Ontario Canada is a happy place to be for us and our loyal staff. We promote a “Sweat shop Free” workplace but in actual fact, there are no real ‘sweatshops’ in Canada. After all this is said and done, it seems to be all about choice. Let’s be more informed about what we’re buying, where it’s from and how it’s made. Let’s also be realistic and make a “greener” lifestyle work for all of us in a way that’s practical and not restrictive.
Where is ecojot headed in the future?
We continue to design and produce wonderful work using100% recycled materials and hope to develop the ecojot ‘brand’ into a strong entity that becomes part of people’s lives and mindset. We hope the world will be a better place for our small contribution, after all it’s not all that hard being green. In fact it’s easy being green!
a pic of kaia and lily at the ontario science centre taken by photographer, friend and mum of kaia - Maylynn Quan. thanx Maylynn for taking the girls and this striking camoflage.
this beautiful red + pink fairy by lily. i love them both!
