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Why is it that all the amazing recycled tile also comes with an amazing price tag?

well put, tobermory.

No kidding. Looks like I can't afford to recycle.

I think the high prices are due to the manufacturers belief that the "green" products trend is a high-end movement just like the natural foods trend is a premium price category in the supermarket. Since a significant population of people will pay more for "environmentally friendly" products "green" is becoming a license to price gouge. Sure, some of these products cost more to produce, but the increased cost of production is frequently well out of proportion to their price.

my main problem with the big price tags is that the only people that can afford them are the very people that have a huge hand in destroying the planet. sure, these people may buy envrironmentally friendly tiles, but what about the hummers and other suv's that are at $9 a gallon? it means the rest of us are shopping at wal-mart buying PVC plastic chairs and tables because a chair made out of sustainable wood costs us the same amout to buy a car - or at least the down payment. which is more important to you - a sustainably made single piece of furniture, or a year's worth of groceries? i am 100% for going green - helped start recycling in my floor's kitchen of the million diet cokes women drink - but it really boils my bottom to see these types of things really break the bank.

that said - they definitely are gorgeous.

I understand that being "green" these days is hip but how does that translate into "expensive"? Those two words just seems to contradict each other when in the same sentence.

These designers and/or companies have to realize that we would all love to do our part to stay "green" or to help the earth out a little, but it's also their responsibility to not make products for the earth conscious individuals so ridiculously expensive.

So, I know this is going to be controversial.....but it is the nature of small companies to have higher fixed, variable and structural costs (and thus higher retails) than larger companies.

It seems logical that reclaimed products should be less....but usually, costs / prices are higher to make differentiated product.

As the market for sustainable products grows....prices will normalize to more understandable levels.

S

Beautiful tiles. Green company. It would be nice to know why they are green from the post here. It is nice to get the opinion about the site instead of "duly noted".

Looks like their cheapest tile is about $85 psf before any shipping costs. Some of it is hundreds of dollars psf.

Plus they are expensive to install as they come bulk, not in sheets.

Let's call this LUXURY GREEN. Only the richest people can afford this. It would probably be greener to just use some nice but less expensive tile and buy carbon offsets then invest the rest in a socially-responsible way, or donate to an environmentally-friendly charity. Green is also about the way we choose to spend our money.

It would be nice to see something similar made in Mexico and retailing for about $12 - 20 psf.

you know, i'm all for spending a bit more to get a green product (and i do, as often as i can), but there's a point when it's clearly out of line for what the product is, which i think is the point we've hit here.

it's a nice reuse of glass for a less utilitarian purpose, i will agree. i don't know where this company gets its glass to recycle into tiles, but i thought there was already a pretty good market for recycling glass bottles into more glass bottles, so i don't know if this is really taking anything out of a landfill in reality. maybe i'm wrong on that one though.

I don't understand the comment "It would be nice to see something similar made in Mexico and retailing for about $12 - 20 psf."

Are you suggesting that goods made in Mexico are of cheaper quality?

And I don't understand the comment "the only people that can afford them are the very people that have a huge hand in destroying the planet."

Not that I would pay this much for tile, but I could, and I do my part--I don't have a car (public transportation/walking/biking only for me), I am vegetarian (nearly vegan), and try my best to reduce, reuse, recycle in that order.

i guess it must be different in a big city where you actually can walk everywhere - here you have to own a car and the only people HERE that can afford a chair for a grand are the people driving big cadillac suvs. guess I was the one not seeing the big picture this time.

and i probably shouldn't say this and will be squawked at if i do, but i'm going to anyway - veganism really doesn't make sense to me - and I don't think it makes any life any greener than one that reduces, reuses, and recycles. i've heard the argument that we are the only species to drink another species' milk. while this is true, we are also the only species to have free thought, walk upright, and use such advanced technology (depending on whether or not you subscribe to the belief in aliens). i just really don't think the fact that someone is close to being vegan should really have anything to do with how green your life may or may not be. i think there are extremes with everything - like the extreme lifestyles of the 80s versus the extreme lifestyle of the order of (buddhist is it?) monks that eat only what falls from the tree. it really all boils down to personal preferences in that regard - i think you can drink milk humanely.

Elizabeth, have you actually done the research on issues such as water consumption, feed production and greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming?

"I don't understand the comment "It would be nice to see something similar made in Mexico and retailing for about $12 - 20 psf."

Are you suggesting that goods made in Mexico are of cheaper quality?
posted by Kathryn on 2007-06-13 09:28:03
view Kathryn's profile"

Hey, Kathryn,

That statement was not meant to imply that goods made in Mexico are of cheaper quality, not sure how you interpreted my post that way.

However, if they were made in Mexico, which has a huge glass, recycled glass, and tile industry, and lower costs, especially labor costs, they could be sold less expensively than those made in Washington state and would be accessible to the rest of us.

I did a brief search for Mexican recycled glass tiles yesterday and came up empty. If I needed tiles I would have kept looking until I found some!

elizabeth in AL,

Many people in the NY metro area who can afford to drive 12 mpg SUVs do so, and menace pedestrians. It's no different here, except that the option to not have a car is available. I sold my car when I moved here, reasoning that it would be cheaper to rent a car two weekends a month than to own one. Guess what? NEVER rented one here, never needed or wanted one.

anne - i wasn't coming down on you or saying you were an awful person for being *almost* vegan - i was simply saying i didn't understand it and what i thought about it - and i know i'm guilty of this as well, but it's really starting to get a little irritating that everyone here feels intitled to their soap box, but is completely unwilling to listen to others and immediately takes what someone else says that happens to not agree as a personal attack. my best friend is vegan and just because i don't see it like you or her does not mean i'm an idiot. true, i may be under researched in the field, but your condescending tone does little to make someone WANT to research it, much less consider changing their eating habits. how else am i or anyone else supposed to learn that there are things i may not be considering or may not know, unless i am told of such things? i'm really tired of being attacked, seeing other people be attacked for their ignorance to things that are not common knowledge, and further more, are currently topics of much debate where different people feel equally strongly about their differing opinions and differing statistics.

you could say "elizabeth, i think if you did a little more research (and maybe give some examples of some sites or references to back up what you say) you may see my point of view"

Elizabeth, I'm sorry if my tone sounded snide. If we can back up a bit - I was responding to your comment where you stated, essentially, that anyone who can afford this recycled glass tile must drive a gas guzzler. I responded that there are some of us, and I am one, who try to tread lightly on the planet despite a comfortable income, and mentioned vegetarianism as an example. Your response to that was to make a rebuttal based on several emotional arguments for veganism that I did not make.

Particularly, you said: "i've heard the argument that we are the only species to drink another species' milk." That's not an argument I made and really has little to do with the green aspect. You also said, "i think you can drink milk humanely." Again, this is not a green argument and it's not an argument I made. So my question was actually not intended to be snide; it was intended to be sincere, because your rebuttal did not address any of the environmental aspects of vegetarianism/veganism.

i'm sorry if it came across as if i was accusing you of using those arguments - i was simply saying i didn't understand it and these are the arguments for it that i've heard - i should have said "what are your arguments/reasons - help me to understand." i see where my tone can also sound accusatory and i must just be missing something today.

also - i wasn't making the assumption that the people who can afford to buy these tiles thusly drive suvs - it is my experience that the only people who can afford them, most often choose to drive these suvs for the bling aspect and are just as often only buying recyclable goods because it is a fad all of a sudden - yet, at least they're using their gas guzzlers to go to whole foods instead of a slaughter house - so, yes, it is incredibly judgemental of me to say these things, but it is still irritating that i (and i make a pretty nice income) cannot afford to buy sustainable furniture, and my only option is to make it myself out of furniture i already have. i also misspoke in my original post - i feel it is the majority of the population that can have the most impact on the economy and on the environment and the majority of the population, like me, only makes 22K/year cannot afford what sustainable furniture/goods are available because of the outrageous price tags. i do think i should have said it differently and i appologize for coming off as rudely as i did.

(not just 22k/year, but you get my point)

I completely agree with you about the mark-up on "green" products, and the fact that often they are more a status symbol than anything else. I guess the silver lining is that the most environmentally-friendly option is not even to buy recycled new products, but to buy secondhand and locally, and this is also usually the least expensive way to go as well. Obviously though, this is more difficult to do with something like tile.

Calling products like this "Green" is such B.S. I know a lot about this process because I fuse glass myself. True, the tiles may be made from recycled glass (or not - many glass fusers call glass they buy specifically made for fusing "recycled"). But the process to make them consists of putting glass into molds and placing them into electric batch kilns, then heating to maybe 1500 degrees to get the glass to fuse. This is an EXTREMELY energy intensive process. I have zero doubts that in terms of harm to the planet, you'd be doing a much better thing by buying tile from someone big like Dal, who make tiles in continuous furnaces that are relatively extremely energy efficient. I don't want to screw up anybody's good thing, I just want the truth.

you know, i've often wondered about using broken old pots as tile. if there's an ecologically friendly way to make it water-proof. i've seen a lot of old flower pots that could no longer retain enough water for plants due to cracks, or what have you, just thrown into the dumpster, or put on the side of our streets for the trash guy to pick up (and you know what REALLY bothers me about birmingham, they have curbside recycling in suburbs, but not in the densest part of the city in the middle of birmingham - AND on top of that, until fairly recently, the law did not state what the dudes picking up the recycling really had to do with the stuff - they weren't required by law to take it to the recycling center so all of it ended up in landfills anyway). i think it'd be cool to have your bathroom tiled out of waterproofed terracotta - although, again, i don't know how efficient the process of waterproofing it would be.

Wow - I never imagined this post would lead to such a passionate debate on green prices. But I think it's a good conversation to have. It's true and frustrating: Some green products are still priced above their traditional counterparts but, hopefully, if we keep paying a little more when we can, demand will soon bring those prices down. I do think that if you are going to buy something, and your budget allows, buying recycled (or local/secondhand--definitely!) material is the sustainable way to go. And if the budget doesn't allow, luckily, there are still plenty of green things we can do in our homes that cost next to nothing ...

Yes, I agree with Stephanie in essence: in order to have a truly green economy, we need to encourage greening all kinds of things--including everything from budget green to luxury green. If handcrafted materials like this cost a lot, that doesn't make them inherently less green--unless, as fuser commented most interestingly, the energy numbers just don't pan out.

Recycled doesn't have to mean expensive.

If you are interested in recycled glass tile and haven't checked out this website, you are really missing out. Susan Jablon has a website for her business, www.susanjablonmosaics.com and she offers the most affordable glass tile on the market. She even offers a line of 100% Certified Recycled that can be blended to your own color choices! Who else does that! It's really wonderful and way below the prices you see anywhere else.

Check it out!

this thread might be dead, but I couldn't go without a comment.

We are the example of a true authentic green business, not a non-profit, a business. We support recycling efforts in our community and have a bottle drive open 7 days a week often supporting lower income families. We package and ship in all reused cardboard and packing materials.

The sq.ft. cost of our tile starts at $36- retail, not $85-, it does go over $100- with certain color and size selections, I see most tile projects come in right around $40-. We have no minimum orders and our tile can cost a little as $2.40ea, so someone can create a beautiful environment with as little investment as they desire. I realize this is not the least expensive surfacing option out there, but that's not our goal. Our goal is to make sustainable and beautiful products and provide them at a reasonable price. I don't think we're going to put China out of business, but this is a totally green product produced by hand here in Seattle from materials pulled from our local waste stream. Our employees have reasonable wages, medical coverage, benefits, a profit sharing program and a percentage of employee ownership.

AS far as fusers comment re: energy usage, our tiles require about the same energy input as a traditional ceramic tile and much less than a poured cast glass tile. We use heat recover to heat our facility in the winter. Plus we use no new material whatsoever throughout the process.

Not to be defensive, just want to set it straight.