CZ Luxe New Web Site - Free Shipping!

Today I am officially unveiling the new web site for my CZ Luxe product line! http://www.czluxe.com

To celebrate the new site and Cyber Monday we are offering the following shipping specials this week only:

Free domestic shipping on all orders of $45 or more placed on the CZ Luxe web site!

$5.00 off international shipping on all overseas orders of $45 or more placed on the CZ Luxe web site!

Domestic customers - simply enter the coupon code: believe in the voucher space during checkout to apply the discount.

Overseas customers - simply enter the coupon code believe-intl in the voucher space during checkout to apply the discount.

Recycling for a future! Artesanìas La Hormiga

Today we present to you the story behind the handmade paper gift box that we are using as part of some gift sets this holiday season. Made exclusively for CZ LUXE by Artesanìas La Hormiga, here is the wonderful story of how recycling is helping a group of librarians in Honduras build better lives for their community:

Our paper making business was created to ensure the sustainability of our community’s library. The funds generated by the business helps the librarians provide more enriching activities for the youth through the purchase of didactic materials such as paint, construction paper, crayons, and table games.

Our business has also served as a recycling program for our community. The recycled paper we make comes from used paper from the local high school and kindergarten as well as the library. Instead of burning great amounts of paper on a regular basis, we now turn what was once trash into beautiful works of art.

The name of our business is Artesanìas La Hormiga because of the ant’s reputation as hard-working and persevering. It is our hope that the youth of our community will one day exemplify these qualities.

We thank you for your purchase and the opportunities it provides for our children and the entire community. - Artesanìas La Hormiga

Making it our business to build better communities

One of the things I strongly believe is that my business can impact many lives in wonderful ways and that it is my responsibility as a business owner to make choices that improve our world and our communities!

This holiday season we are offering our customers the opportunity to directly help build better communities around the globe with their holiday gift purchases.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I will post here about each of A Little Ol'Factory's
& CZ Luxe's Fair Trade items, ingredients and the community projects that are directly benefit from our purchases of their materials and artistic creations.

**Added note .. since several folks have contacted me and asked .. the youngling in the image is the child of a rose picker I met in Isparta, Turkey. They were waiting at the weigh station to get the day's haul of rose petals logged in. They are paid a good (by local standards), living wage for their labor, as it should be!

This woman's junkmail is also her company's packing material and soap wrappers

At least 98% of the packing material that we use here at A Little Ol'Factory is recycled through re-use. We re-use every piece of packing foam, bubble wrap and Styrofoam that comes through our door. We also shred every piece of junk mail that we can and use it as packing material for our shipments.

In addition to using almost all recycled box packing materials, we are also using more and more recycled packaging for our line!

Our brand new new soap wrappers (to be unveiled on the new site in time for the holidays) are handmade in the US, from 100% recycled paper (such as junk mail), natural botanicals and contain embedded seeds such as Italian Basil and Columbine Flowers - so not only are they recycled and recyclable, but they are also reusable! They can be planted in your garden or a flower pot and grow a lovely decorative or edible plant that you and your family can enjoy!

We are very happy to have announced earlier this year the phasing in of 100% Post Consumer Recycled Plastic ( PCR ) PET bottles. One of ours goal is to, by next year, have all of our items that require bottling in plastic to be in PCR PET bottles. Click here to see these bottles that are more than just aesthetically pleasing.

These are but a few very simple implementations that save us (the company) money, saves us (the growing US population) a LOT of landfill space and saves us (the entire human race) valuable resources that would otherwise be squandered.

According to the Center for the New American Dream in Maryland:

* 5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually.

* The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equal to 1.5 trees every year—more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined.

* 44 percent of junk mail is thrown away unopened, but only half that much junk mail (22 percent) is recycled.

* Americans pay $370 million annually to dispose of junk mail that doesn’t get recycled.

* On average, Americans spend 8 months opening junk mail in the course of their lives.

With little effort, you can be a big part of the solution, both personally and with your pocketbook.

If you don't have a way to recycle and reuse your own junk mail, you can stop if from coming to you in the first place! Check out http://junkbusters.com/ for more info on how.

Support businesses that support recycling efforts. Contact businesses that don't currently use recycled materials and tell them you'd like them to. When consumers talk, business listens!

Have a wonderful week and remember, it only takes a spark (and a little bit of junk mail ;) to get a fire going!

Iceland phasing out fossil fuels for clean energy

The article from CNN

And we've got the "powers that be" that say the USA can't do this ...

20th Century Plastic Attitudes - Can we fix it? Yes we can!

I've contacted several of the bottles suppliers many of us smaller toiletry business owners know about, to request they get in this new line of high end, gorgeous 100% Post Consumer Recycled heavy walled PET Plastic bottles, that are FDA approved and are easily as stunning as Virgin PET packaging (no sacrifice in quality here).

Well, I'm sorry to report that so far the ones I've gotten responses from are ho'ing and humming and dragging their feet and either won't do it or say there is no demand for it! This outdated mentality is far too widely accepted.

I find it hard to believe that I am the only business owner/consumer out there that wants more eco-friendly packaging options available, but isn't into aluminum and can't use glass (glass + shower/bathing areas = safety hazard ;)!

Did you realize that only 5% of ALL PET plastic is actually recycled in this country? Did you also realize that currently almost every plastic bottle you use, whether it is as a manufacturer, or as consumer, comes from new (virgin) plastic? This Plastic Attitude is so 20th century!

I will borrow a phrase from the show Bob the Builder (loved by my 4 yr old) - Can we fix it? Yes we can!

It is up to us, and our responsibility, as the business owners and as the consumers of goods supplied to us by other business owners, to start doing the right thing and demand the same from our suppliers.

It is negligent of businesses to not step up and make the positive and necessary changes that would make HUGE differences in the waste put out by our industries. ESPECIALLY if we claim ourselves (as consumers or businesses) to be "green" and "natural" and 'concerned for the environment", etc ...

If you're reading this and you truly care about making a difference when it comes to things like the waste level in this world, write to your bottle suppliers and tell them you want to have access to recycled plastic bottles. Tell your shampoo and lotion makers (little or large) to use recycled plastic bottles, etc ...

Let them know the demand is not only here for more eco-friendly packaging made from recycled plastic, but that it is huge AND it is the wave of the future, here today !!!

Read more about these great bottles (4th paragraph) :
http://www.cpcpkg.com/magazine/07_03_odplastic_bottles.php


Click Here to buy some PCR PET bottles now!