The Inevitable Expectation Curve

“The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry…” – Robert Burns, 18^th century poet

Or, to put it more colloquially, Murphy’s Law indeed reigns supreme! Planning, timelines, deadlines – these should only be used as guidelines, we are learning, when starting a business. Especially when construction inspectors and subcontractors are involved! Oh please grant us this moment of levity, we’re certainly not placing blame – just trying to make sense of things, find the humor in it, and readjust. That said, we’ve had to revisit and revamp our expectations for completion dates and in doing so have had to push our opening back to the middle of May. Here’s to hoping that we’re on the downhill side of that pesky curve!

Building It Up: Part 2

Hallelujah we have WALLS! Here are a few pictures from today - click on the photo to see more.

Why Shop Resale?

Augmenting your wardrobe with items purchased from resale and consignment stores is a great way to offset some of the not so great consequences of the production of raw clothing material:

• Mainstream cotton production degrades farmland and pollutes waterways – the amount of cotton it takes to make a simple tee requires the application of two pounds of pesticide

• The most common fabric dyes contain heavy metals which can be harmful to animals, ourselves, and the environment in general

• Synthetic polyesters and nylons are made from petrochemicals in a super-polluting crude oil refinement process

Source: http://www.natural-environment.com/blog/tag/landfill/

We can all do our part to reduce our impact on our lovely planet. We sure have gotten an education about the environmental ramifications of mass textile production as we delve deeper into the clothing industry and want to share what we’ve learned. There is a huge social piece to this puzzle too, but we’ll save that for another post. It has definitely encouraged us to make some changes in our buying habits and hope that it will for you too!

Textile recycling update:

The Corvallis Sustainability Coalition is currently looking for a location to place a large (think semi-trailer) sized container to collect textiles, and when found St. Vincent de Paul has agreed to transport the container to the appropriate reclamation center. In the meantime, St. Vincent de Paul in Albany accepts textiles of all kinds for reuse and recycling, including items that aren’t suitable for resale (like rags, old towels, and too-worn clothes) as long as they’re free of any hazardous substances. We’ll be keeping up on the progress toward getting a depot in Corvallis and will keep you in the loop too!