A Simple Guide to Safe, Eco-Friendly Crafting

Whether your favorite crafting hobby is ceramics, beading, knitting, or anything else fun and creative, it's always a great idea to make sure your materials are safe for the environment. Checking your materials for their safety with humans is also dire - you don't want to excessively use products or materials that are harming your body either!

Product Toxicity
An easy way to begin searching for the safest and most earth friendly crafting materials is to check their ingredients and labels. Always be aware of the minimum standards for products to label themselves such things as "all-natural" or even "non-toxic." For instance, when products like paints or glues are tested in the lab with rats, their standards for determining toxicity might not be as promising as you would like to think. When the lab rats are exposed to levels of the possibly toxic chemicals inside these materials, the results of their health is recorded after about a 2 week period. If more than half survive, the product is labeled as a non-toxic product. (Source and more info on this here.)That means that if just under half of the rats die, the product will still be labeled as non-toxic. I don't like those odds, and neither should anyone concerned about the safety of their craft work!

If some of the chemicals in your crafting products are not only strong enough to kill rats, you can imagine the sort of effect it would have on the environment. This brings me to the term "biodegradable." For a product to label itself as biodegradable, it has to meet a pretty easy standard - the ingredients inside have to break down into compounds that don't hurt the planet or atmosphere. However - this isn't to say that what will eventually break down into something non-polluting, isn't in it's polluting stage on the shelf before you buy it.

There are some crafting materials that are used day in and day out by ordinary, seemingly healthy people. However, things like dry earth clays and xylene or toluene based paints can be harming your lungs as well as the land they'll eventually end up in. In dry earth type clays, silica or asbestos may be present and plentiful. The more you use these clays in excess, the more exposure to these harmful elements you have. Always be sure what's in your clay before you craft with it!

Products with toluene, xylene, heptane, etc. are quite bad for your body. A lot of products you might use today could be loaded with these things - such as rubber cement, contact cement, epoxy, and spray or layer adhesives. These products contain harmful solvents, and these bad chemicals can hurt your internal organs. Check your product labels carefully!

Creativity Through Recycling
The best way to truly have an eco-friendly craft routine is to use tools and materials that don't harm our precious planet. There are plenty of great crafting ideas for every variety of creative soul that can be done using all or mostly recycled products. Things to save for your crafting supply can be found all over your house, in places you might have forgotten about!

If you have old clothes and shirts that you used to love, but the time has left them behind (or you just can't fit in them anymore...), you can use the material for a sweet personalized tote bag. This is a fantastic idea, because these are becoming more and more stylish since they completely symbolize what it is to be a part of the green trend - environmentally conscious as well as modern and sophisticated.

When it comes to beading - my ultimate favorite craft - try using wood beads made only from naturally fallen trees. Using cord made of natural and renewable things like flax and hemp is also a great idea, because nothing artificial is produced to create them. With knitting, there are plenty of ways to be eco-friendly. For starters, you can make your own yarn from things like unrecyclable plastics and outdated clothes!

When it comes to your favorite craft, the materials you use are just as important as the creative mind using them. By keeping a safe and eco-friendly crafting routine, you can share your hobby with your family and friends worry free.

Sources and Helpful Info at:
artsandmedia.net
oregontoxics.org