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Another advertorial.

$33 for 1 cup saucer.

The enviro-feel-goodism has the ring of a press release. I thought that the electric grid was interconnected, and that it was impossible even in principle in today's system to guarantee where your electricity comes actually from. (unless of course you have your own power plant, which I guess I took for granted these guys didn't)

I didn't read the article, I just looked at the pictures. These are really pretty!

Yeah, although I like seeing new products this does seem like an advertorial.

Also, I believe most production ceramic studios make their own glazes - it's too expensive to buy pre-made glazes and so easy to make your own. Furthermore, I find it a bit brazen and odd to brag about conserving energy and then show pieces with a metallic glaze rims which account for at least one of the 3 low-fires processes done after glazing. (In general, the first firing is to harden the dried 'greenware' after which it becomes 'bisque' ware and is ready for glaze application, the 2nd firing is for the glaze to develop and harden and then there are one or 2 more firings for special decorations such as the metallic glaze decoration.) They say there were 3 firings after glazing which means there were at least 4 firings. Even at low fire, assuming you are using a clay for low-fire, you should not have to fire several times to harden the clay for durability. The extra firings were done strictly for the metallic rims.

Even at low fire temps, that's a lot of energy. Having majored in ceramics I don't actually have a problem with the process, but at best, they are emphasizing the positives. And, at worst (and I think they are closer to 'at worst') this is somewhat deceptive and has a truth-in-advertising issue.

We would like to address questions raised by Jim G and swoozie.

We encourage you to visit our website and read about the actual process of handcrafting the ceramics at www.terrakeramik.com/terrakeramik.php. We have also posted the environmental practices at www.terrakeramik.com/environment.php. We very much appreciate the blog posting from apartmenttherapy.com but our website contains more detailed and technically accurate information.

To comment on Jim G's environmental questions first. As stated on our website, Terra Keramik purchases all of its electricity from the Winterthur Municipal Utility in Switzerland. 50% of the energy purchases represents clean, renewable hydropower from domestic sources, and the other 50% represents energy from a local cogeneration plant that produces electricity and steam from municipal waste. Jim G is absolutely correct that in an electric grid the electricity is fungible. However what he doesn't realize is that if Terra Keramik purchases eco-friendly power, then the utility must produce and transmit that power in the grid, thereby replacing an equivalent amount of fossil fuel generated power. If all electric consumers like Terra Keramik would elect to purchase eco-friendly power, the utility would continue to change its mix of power produced and transmitted into the grid. In fact, the Winterthur Municipal Utility today produces the majority of its electricity from eco-friendly sources, e.g. hydro, solar, wind, cogeneration (uses municipal waste to produce electricity and steam, rather than landfilling the waste), and not from coal and oil-fired power plants. Because that is what the business and home consumers in this city of 100,000 demand! What is important here is that Terra Keramik converted from the standard mix of power purchases to an eco-friendly mix 2 years ago at an increased cost of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Jim G refers to the apartmenttherapy.com blog post as enviro-feel-goodism. We would like to mention a few other Terra Keramik initatives that are eco-friendly, not adopted by many of our competitors, and actually cost us more money.

The glazes are produced by Terra Keramik and contain zero lead and cadmium. The FDA does not require zero lead and cadmium for imported tableware (they do allow traces). Two years ago, Terra Keramik converted from producing glazes that met the FDA standard but did contain allowable traces of lead and cadmium, to glazes that were independely tested and verified by a state laboratory to contain zero lead and cadmium, thereby surpassing the FDA standard (note: although most tableware imported into the US meets FDA standards, that doesn't mean its zero lead and cadmium, and some of the tableware imported from South America, Eastern Europe and Asia does not meet FDA standards, although it is still sold in this country). Changes to the glazes was technically challenging and required additional investment. This was not about enviro-feel-goodism. We wanted to produce a product that contained zero lead and cadmium, and protected artisans, consumers and the environment.

In our packaging we use corn starch peanuts that are recycable and can be used as compost in your garden. These are more expensive than standard packaging peanuts but do not create the environmental problems that standard peanuts do.

We could go on and on about our environmental and social practices. The point is that we try to find ways to reduce the social, environmental and economic impact while producing a commercial product. We believe that is a good thing. To call it enviro-feel-goodism is not understanding our values and what drives us as a company.

We would also like to address swoozies' comments about the glazes. On our website the artisan explains the process of baking the greenware (1st firing), glazing and firing the glaze (2nd firing), and handbrushing the platinum accents and the 3rd firing, and the specific temparatures for each firing. All of our competitors fire their ceramics 2-3 times. What is different about Terra Keramik is that it purchases specially formulated clay from Germany (again at a slightly higher cost than standard clay) that sinters at a lower temperature, thereby enabling Terra Keramik to achieve the same porosity and durability of its products but at 20% less energy consumption.

We would like to mention two additional eco-friendly practices that are related to the production process that are not mentioned in the apartmenttherapy.com blog. Two years ago, to support its exports to the United States and Canada, Terra Keramik invested in a 2nd state-of-the-art energy efficient kiln, and more recently purchased a clay cutter to cut and recycle clay (instead of landfilling clay waste). Again, these things cost more money.

We are doing these things because we believe they're the right things to do. We have families and children and are concerned about the environmental, social and economic impact of commercial enterprises in this country. We don't use buzz phrases like carbon footprint. We adopt tangible practices that cost us more money and have real results.

If you have additional questions or comments, please visit our website or write to our customer service email address on the website. We would be happy to engage in additional, constructive dialogue. Thank you!

Thanks to terrakeramik for the extensive post. I appreciate your position, but I think what disturbed me (and others) was that this post on this blog was a thinly-disguised advertisement without any meaningful value-added commentary by the Apartment Therapy writers. The text reads like a press release or a catalog listing, replete with marketing buzzwords and exclamation marks.

I like being pointed toward interesting products as much as the next guy, but when this website starts to resemble a mere product/shopping site I'll likely visit it much less often.

I don't object to a company touting its environmental consciousness, but it's a difficult thing to analyze and is given to a lot of self-aggrandizing puffery.

E.g., of course I am aware that some utilities are now tiering their prices, giving enviro-conscious consumers the option to pay a higher rate for the electricity produced from the enviro-friendly side of a particular utility's operations. But it's easy to see that this doesn't necessarily mean that the utility actually builds more enviro-friendly production facilities. E.g., a utility can't just build another dam wherever it pleases, and it can't just convert a gas turbine into a hydrothermal plant because consumers might wish it could. The excess payments could as easily be used to lower the costs of traditional energy for competitive purposes, or simply go to operating profit.

Of course, I do hope it does lead to a good end.