Waste and Recycling

Posted on: August 31, 2016, by :

While cities around the globe grapple with ways to reduce waste through the promotion of recycling, Dapwood Furniture is proud to say that as a long-time certified B-Corporation and members of Green America, the Sustainable Furnishing Council, and the New Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce, we have all along been actively engaged in improving our community and planet through an aggressive recycling program.

Recycling must be more than an advertising slogan and/or public relation campaign, it must be in the DNA of business. Today’s environmentally responsible companies must be engineered around responsible management of one’s waste and manufacturing by-products. It must be more than simply paying a waste management firm to take care of it or dumping scrap in recycling bins. There is so much more can be done when a company takes a serious look at what it produces and institutes policies and procedures to minimize or eliminate waste.

For the past decade, Dapwood has refined its processes and engineered its products with the express purpose of eliminating any environmentally harmful waste- there are no VOCs, toxins or pollutants anywhere in our operation. In addition, nothing remaining from Dapwood’s crafting operations, ever finds it’s way into a waste site. Nothing! Ever!

All wood “fall-off” is sorted. Perfectly good but skinny pieces are glued together to make wider pieces. Shorter pieces are donated to community help centers and schools to be used by students in wood working projects. Local artists and craftsmen utilize Dapwood as a resource for their artistic efforts. Even our tiny cherry and oak wood scraps are sought out by local back yard barbequers and “smoke” enthusiasts for flavoring their cooked meats.

Dapwood like any woodworking operations generates a significant amount of sawdust and shavings in the crafting of our platform bed frames and accessories. We go through the process of painstakingly sorting sawdust by type of wood species since some woods are not suitable for all purposes. Dapwood has cultivated a unique network of gardeners and horse enthusiasts who regularly utilize the sawdust from our shop as it is prized for use in their passions- be it bedding for horse stalls and corrals or supplementing their gardening soil.

Native American philosophy reminds us that we should leave no footprints as we pass through the forest so our children and their children have a place to call home. Dapwood Furniture has always behaved this way and actively work to insure that we leave no stains for others to address.