Eco Friendly "Vegetable Ivory" or Elephant Ivory - Which is a Better Choice

With more consumers going green and becoming concerned with bettering our environment, different ways of using natural resources are becoming more earth friendly options. Looking again at older ideas is bringing the tagua nut into a once-again popularity. Coming from the rain forests of Central and South America, this product is renewable and sustainable.

Eco friendly buttons from nuts?

Before plastic buttons came into production, 20% of the buttons manufactured in the United States were made of this natural resource, Tagua nuts.

The eco friendly and renewable Tagua palm tree

The Tagua palm tree, which can grow to 20 feet tall, produces a nut that has been used by local artisans for a long time in making items of necessity and luxury like: jewelry, keychains, hand-carved figurines, beads, boxes, dice, chess pieces, cane handles and a lot more.

Eco friendly uniform buttons!

Some of the U.S. military uniforms of World War 1 and World War 11 sported buttons designed from Tagua nuts. Looking very similar to real elephant ivory, the product made from these nuts is sometimes called the "vegetable ivory" after it has gone through the process of harvesting, drying, slicing, drilling and polishing. Using products from the tagua nut helps stabilize the rain forests of the Amazon.

Elephant ivory

The hunting of animals for their ivory, such as the elephant, is prompting consumers to look at different earth and wildlife friendly choices. A tagua palm can grow as much "vegetable ivory" as a female elephant produces during her whole lifetime. The tagua nut is a renewable resource. This palm grows wild in many areas and the nuts can be harvested over and over with the tree producing again and again.

A renewable resource, biodegradable and earth friendly - the Tagua nut!

Unlike plastics, the tagua nut, if left alone, will decompose and return to the soil to enrich and feed new vegetation.

Harder than wood?

Though the Tagua nut is harder than wood it might still be carved into original designs with a woodburning pen.

Wearing tagua ornaments

Many of the people of South America believe that those wearing Tagua ornaments and pendants would always live in harmony and be loved by family members. Our world is changing for the better in favor of our wildlife friends and a greener environment for our present and future.

Sources:

http://environment.about.com/od/earthtalkcolumns/a/ecofashion.htm
http://www.softexpressions.com/software/emb/Buttons4.php
http://www.oneworldprojects.com/products/tagua.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytelephas
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Colombia-Dispatch-8-The-Tagua-Industry.html
http://www.pueblito.ca/materials.php
http://www.somethingextree.com/tagua.html