Home Hats and Clothing About the Mouse Works Stores and Festivals Environmental Commitment Mouse Adventures Customer Photographs Links to good folks Wholesale Order And Contact
The mice are going traveling between April 5th and May 1st. 
Any orders placed in that time period will be shipped out the first week of May.
Sorry about any inconvenience.

 

 

 


Click to Return to
the Home Page

 Home
Hats and Clothing
About the Mouse Works
Stores and Festivals
Environmental Commitment
Mouse Adventures
Customer Photographs
Links to good folks
Wholesale
Order And Contact

 

Environmental Commitment  

My earliest childhood memories are of playing outside.  The forests around our mountain homestead in West Virginia became the playground for my siblings and me.  We headed for the woods when our homeschooling studies were finished (around noon) and often stayed out until hunger brought us back for dinner.  The deep respect and appreciation for nature that grew out of those early experiences, expanded with long-distance hiking, seeping outside, and a college education.  I majored in Environmental Studies at Bates College and worked for three years on waste reduction and recycling in the college dining hall.  I believe that running a business requires environmental responsibility that should go well beyond the current norm.  While it might be slightly more time intensive I think that it is our responsibility both as individuals and businesses to do all that we can to lower the environmental impact of our daily lives.  
 


Teaching compass skills to a local student on a biodiversity research study in Madagascar.

What does Recycled Mean?
My hats are "doubly recycled."

First all of the Malden Mills fleece that I use is "trash" from factories. Due to their large production facilities they cannot use the ends of the bolts, flawed fabric or old colors. That is where I come in. Each year I purchase hundreds if not thousands of yards of this discarded material to make into hats. My hats are the same quality as those made from virgin Polartec Fabric from Malden Mills.  The difference is that the environmental impact is far less and you get a wider selection of colors.

Secondly Malden Mills makes some of its fleece out of recycled soda pop bottles.  The technology of this process is so good that you can not tell the difference which makes it impossible for me to know how much of my fleece is made from recycled plastic due to the way that I purchase it.


A UPS Truck Load of Fleece Remnants purchased directly from Malden Mills. This is photo is taken in my old workshop

 
Recycling
Hand cutting hats out of fabric maximizes the usage of fabric.  But still I generate large piles of scraps.  I tediously cut larger scraps into small hat tassels or use them for patchwork clothing.  Those that I cannot use for sewing become pillow stuffing for dog and human pillows that I give away.  I have never thrown away any fleece scraps (except for some floor sweepings).   To the left is a bag of scraps that I can not use for hats that will soon become pillow stuffing.  Imagine a room 10 foot square filled four to five feet deep in scraps, that is how much I recycle each year! 
Waste
One can judge the effectiveness of recycling by looking at the amount of trash that goes to the landfill.   In 2006 my production hung out at about 5000 hats and I still only filled one paper grocery bag with trash.  It could be less but it is the best that I can do.  I would estimate that 95% or more of my business waste is recycled. 
 


 


"There is nothing like home-grown tomatoes" 
This plant grew like wild while I was backpacking the northern half of the Pacific Crest Trail

Energy Usage
In 2006 the total electricity used by two households of two And The Mouse Works was down to 2240 kWh.  I called up my electric cooperative and found out that the average energy used per  household is 18,000 kWh.   That means that my business-household usage is only 13% of the average  electricity usage in this area.   I am currently looking into producing this energy with solar panels. 

No Daily Commute
My daily commute involves walking inside from my outdoor sleeping spot greatly reducing the amount of gas usage and harmful emissions from my car.  In the fall I travel to festivals so I do put 2-3000miles on my vehicle then.

 

New "Green" Studio-House
During the summers of  2005-6 I built a new home for my self and the Mouse Works.   While I was on a tight budget and doing most of the work myself I tried to incorporate many affordable green building practices into the construction. Here are a few:
  1. The house is built on a large concrete slab and is partly earth-bermed on the north and east sides.  This provides a slightly cooler space in the summer and warmer in the winter.  
  2. The building is oriented to take advantage of passive solar heat gain in the winter.
  3. I super insulated the building using recycled newspaper.  The earth-bermed cinderblock wall cavities were insulated with used packing beads and fleece scraps!
  4. Most of the windows are recycled from houses and construction sites.
    Light colored energy star metal roof
  5. My entire workshop is lit by window light during the day and by night with energy efficient florescent bulbs. 
  6. The trash from the entire construction fit into one station wagon car!

 


The Weedy patch in the foreground is a rainwater garden that absorbs the runoff piped from my gutters.  I am trying to establish a cranberry bog in part of it.  You can see my raised-bed garden in front of my studio-house.

Other Initiatives

  1. Much of my equipment comes from sources that salvage from damaged and closing factories.  Buying used equipment has a smaller impact on the environment than new equipment.
  2. Dumpster Diving.  Yep that is right much of my personal and business supplies (lights chairs, office supplies, paper, plastic bags, etc) come from scrounging through other people's trash.  
  3. If you buy a hat from me at a craft fair I will give it to you in a recycled plastic bag.   That saves around 2,000 bags each year!
  4. I print all of my internal office documents on the back of used paper.  New recycled content paper is only used for business correspondence.  In 2006 I only used 2/3 of ream of paper for my office and personal use.
  5. Some waste like the spools from the 200 miles of thread that I generate is donated to local schools for art projects.
  6. I also donate to environmental groups, write letters and vote for environmentally oriented public office candidates.
  7. Most individual hat orders are shipped in recyclable paper envelopes while larger orders are shipped in recyclable Tyvek priority mail envelopes.   Both are made partly from recycled content.

The mice are going traveling between April 5th and May 1st. 
Any orders placed in that time period will be shipped out the first week of May.
Sorry about any inconvenience.

The Mouse Works
4646 Buddy's Place Ln.
Earlysville, VA 22936

434-973-6032

   © 2000-2008 The Mouse Works All Rights Reserved.