Our Commitment to Sustainability

Sustainability, Without the Hand-Waving

Plenty of companies slap a green leaf on the page and call it a day. We'd rather tell you the specific things we actually do, so you can judge for yourself. None of it is world-changing on its own, but together, it's us trying to run a small manufacturing business without pretending the environmental cost is someone else's problem.

3D Printing Starts With an Advantage

Before we do anything else, the way we manufacture is already one of the leaner options out there. 3D printing is additive: the material goes into the part instead of being carved away as waste, unlike machining. And we print on demand rather than mass-producing inventory that might never sell, so we're not churning out crates of parts destined for a landfill. We make what people order, in the quantities they need.

Powered by a Green Utility

Our production runs on a green energy plan through our utility, so the electricity driving every print is sourced from renewable generation rather than fossil fuels. Printing is an electricity-intensive process, hours of runtime per part, so where that power comes from genuinely matters. Choosing the renewable plan is a simple, concrete way to keep the footprint of the actual manufacturing down.

Carbon-Removal Shipping on Every Order

Getting a part to your door has a carbon cost, and we pay to address it. We fund Shopify Planet on every single shipment we send, not a token gesture on some orders, all of them. Shopify Planet directs that contribution to vetted carbon-removal projects, so the emissions from shipping your order are countered by verified removal, order after order. It's a standing cost we've built into how we ship, not an add-on we hope you'll tick at checkout.

Packaging You Can Put Straight in the Recycling

This is the part most companies quietly cut corners on, and it's where we went the other direction. Nearly everything in your order's packaging is recyclable, top to bottom:

  • Recyclable mailers. Even our #0 mailers are recyclable, not the typical poly bubble mailer that has to go in the trash.
  • Paper tape instead of plastic packing tape, so you don't have to peel plastic off before recycling the box.
  • Kraft boxes that go right into your paper recycling.
  • Paper fill for protection, no plastic air pillows, no foam peanuts.

The one exception we'll own up to: small parts sometimes ship in little plastic bags, because keeping tiny pieces together and from getting lost is one problem we haven't found a better answer for yet. We use them as little as we can and only where they're genuinely needed. Everywhere else, the goal holds, when your order arrives, the packaging should be something you can recycle without sorting out plastic. It costs a bit more than the plastic defaults, but we think it's worth it.

What Happens to Our Waste

Manufacturing produces waste, failed prints, supports, the occasional scrapped part, and the boxes our filament ships in. We don't just bin it. We recycle our scrap material, and we recycle the filament boxes and packaging that come into the shop. Keeping our own back-of-house waste out of the landfill is the least we can do if we're going to talk about sustainability at all.

The Honest Bottom Line

We're a small shop, and we're not going to claim we've solved anything. What we can say is that at every point where there's a greener option within our reach, renewable power, carbon-removal shipping, recyclable packaging, recycling our own waste, we've taken it. It's not marketing. It's just how we'd want a company we buy from to operate, so it's how we operate.