We belive that we should tread lightly upon the world, and keep our footprint as small as possible.
We prefer to use local grown, but not necessarily native, hardwoods, occasional pieces of tropical hardwood are usually reclaimed.
Our wood locally sourced, occasionally family and friends from further away offer us timber which we do not refuse - but the travel miles are accomplished in a visit that would anyway be made. Most of it is fallen trees that would otherwise be wasted, we use more of a tree than any carpenter or cabinet maker.
Our new gallery is lit with solar energy, a luxury really as the building is not ideally sited for that form of power. In the workshop we use a combination of flourescent tubes and energy saving bulbs, though all the power used does come from the grid.
We have an ambition to install a wind generator, but we can't afford it and the National Park planners probably wouldn't permit it. Hopefully one day ..
We do not buy plastic packaging; most of the bubblewrap we use comes from underneath the fruit in the produce section of our local Tesco Store, we also reuse plastic carrier bags when necessary. We do buy brown paper carrier bags, which are recyclable, but I am still looking for affordable ones made from recycled paper. Cardboard boxes and padded envelopes are also recycled.
Together with the actions outlined above, our waste wood is used as fuel for the house. There is a Hot Spot stove burning woodshavings & sawdust in the workshop, making the it the warmest place to be in the winter. Summer produced woodshavings are composted for several years and then used to mulch the vegetable garden.
In the house we compost and otherwise recycle as far as possible in the unenlighteded end of Wales - I can't believe it makes environmental sense to export waste to the far East for reprocessing.
We enjoy demonstrating our traditional pole lathe at various events - showing people what can be achieved by foot power alone.
When we moved here in 1999 Jo started growing trees from seed as part of a ongoing project to create a 'turners wood' for future generations! Species are a mixture of native - for which I collect seed as close to home as possible, and, because it is a turners wood, a few exotics - such as walnut and eucalyptus - for which I use any seed I can get!
The seedling trees are planted out when very small, to give them a chance to adapt to life in our rather exposed field, the survivors from the first years are now about waist high!