November 2010

The Impact of Oil: The Visual Story

If you didn’t know, plastic is made from oil – its petroleum by-products. And while we posted earlier about Edward Burtynsky’s TED Prize Talk, this month he made a very compelling return to the TED stage. He presented his latest work on the impact of oil on our environment. While the world noticed oil’s impact from the news this summer from the BP Oil Spill, we move along quickly from major news stories and move on with our lives. But oil is part of our everyday lives – from plastic in packaging to containers to the oil we use in heating and in running our cars. Take in the visual images from Edward’s latest work below.

You’ll understand why we’re 100% plastic free in our products and our packaging.

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The May River

If there’s one thing we like beside glass, it’s water.  Here are a couple of photos of the May River taken a few steps from our studios in Bluffton.  Who wouldn’t be inspired by colors and scenery like this?

The May River, Sunset
Sunset on the May RiverMoon rise over the May River.

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Why is Glass Green?

Source: Flickr, Slumped Green Glass by salient913

Believe it or not, this is a relatively common question we get about glass. While most glass is tranparent when it’s thin, the thicker glass gets, the more it takes on a green tinge.  Why?  Ordinary glass, which is made of a soda-lime base (no petroleum required in this material), contains iron-oxide.  For those of you into the chemical side, that’s FeO, also called ferris oxide. When thin, you don’t notice any color, but as this ordinary glass gets thicker, it takes on a green tinge from the iron-oxide impurities which are common.  Now, certain green soda or wine bottles you see take on that green hue thanks to the iron oxide, but also to the addition of chromium-oxide which makes it even more colorful.  On the opposite side, if you want to take out the green tinge to ordinary glass, you can add magesium-oxide. 

And who said chemistry wasn’t fun?

Why is Glass Green? Read More »

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