At Documounts we give serious thought to how we can support sustainability. You can find more about our efforts to reduce and recycle by viewing the series of blog posts Lean Toward Green.

We’re pleased to tell you that since 1991, our parent company Larson-Juhl, has partnered with the Global ReLeaf forest restoration program to plant trees around the world.

The Larson-Juhl Global ReLeaf Forest Foundation has sponsored the planting of more than 350,000 trees! This year, our annual holiday commitment to forest sustainability continues with four planting projects throughout the United States.

We invite you to learn more by following these links:

http://www.larsonjuhl.com/environment.html

In honor of Earth Day we’re happy to share some of the small steps we’ve taken at Documounts to lessen the size of our footprint on Planet Earth.

We’ve previously written here about how we deal with the biggest component of our waste stream – scrap matboard and we have also noted which mounting boards can be recycled.

But there’s more that we want to tell you about.  We recycle 90% of all plastic film and shrink wrap and 95% of all wood and metal scrap. We also recycle or resell 100% of our plexi/acrylic waste.

We’ve eliminated the use of paper cups in our lunch room and use scrap matboard as pizza plates for employee parties – how appropriate is that?!  And rather than purchasing bottled water, we use a UV and Reverse Osmosis filter on our tap water.

Stay tuned for further discussions about packing materials and other business by-products.  As always, we invite your comments and ideas. We’re all here together on this spinning ball and together we can protect it for future generations.

One way that we all do our part for our planet, is to reduce the amount of stuff that we cast off and send to landfills. If you’re inclined to think about the end result of what you order from us, read on.

We offer two types of mountboard that once they’re no longer being used to support your artwork can be recycled and therefore kept out of the waste stream.

Archival Mountboard – Exactly like a piece of 4 ply Alphamat matboard, but priced like a mountboard, it’s made by Bainbridge and comes in either white or ivory.

2UB and 4UB Mountboard – UB (utility board) is a solid core chipboard product.  It has white surface papers and a gray core.  2UB is about as thick as a piece of matboard, and 4UB – at double thickness – is about 1/8” thick.

Both of these mountboard options are made from wood pulp. And just like most kinds of uncoated paper and cardboard made from trees, they’re accepted at recycling centers or can be put out in your curbside recycling bin with scrap paper and newspapers.

As you can imagine, a virtual mountain of scrap matboard is left over after we cut your orders. In an effort to keep this matboard out of the recycling bin and put this resource to full use we give our scrap new life as Terry’s Specials.

We take the scraps and fall-off from matboard that’s too small to restock and reuse, and re-chop them into uniform 8×10 or 11×14 mat blanks (ie. matboard without a window).

They’re sorted into three color groups– whites and creams, assorted colors, and blacks – and are sold in bundles of 25.  The boards are all 4 ply and the packages contain any combination of pH neutral standard paper, archival, and Canterbury economy boards.

You can use them as mountboards, as float backing, or cut your own mat windows in them.  And if you want to think beyond the obvious, consider using them for kid’s art, for packing and shipping, or for bookbinding and craft projects.

It’s a green, money-saving win for everyone.  Our customers get an economical mountboard, we reduce our disposal costs and together we keep the material out of the energy-demanding recycling loop.

Stock availability can be limited. Current prices for a 25 pack of Terry’s Specials are:  8×10’s =  $5.00,  11×14’s =  $9.75

Please learn more about Terry’s Specials…

Many of you – our customers – create art that captures and depicts the beauty of the natural world.  You share your unique interpretations of what you see around you in photos, paintings, and prints.

Documounts is very proud to provide the matting and framing products that help you enhance and sell your images in galleries, on websites, in festivals and at fairs.

The conundrum is that in order to share art in a physical form, artists and framers need to draw from and exploit the very resources that make the natural world so awesome to begin with.

We at Documounts have a desire to do what we can to help protect and preserve resources. We hope that there will be something equally inspiring to paint and photograph for future generations.

The framing industry is a “toddler” when it comes to green thinking and green products.  So there’s not a perfect answer to the question, “how do we frame with a green conscience?”  But there ARE some choices that you can make that at least lean in that direction.

As an ongoing feature of this Blog, we’ll be sharing information to help you Lean Toward Green.  Stay tuned for discussions about:

• which products are made with sustainable considerations
• which products are made from recycled materials
• which products are recyclable
• how you can reduce your own consumption of framing materials
• how we reduce, reuse and recycle in our facility
• how we pack, ship and market our products with an environmental nod
• and more…

We look forward to your comments and questions.