SUSTAINABLE CORK
What makes Cork a unique product is it´s properties and applications: - Properties: Lightness, Elasticity, Impermeability, Insulation, Resistance to wear, Hypoallergenic and Fire retardant. - Applications: Building, Interior Design, Leisure, Fashion and Technology.
Cork is a 100% sustainable and renewable natural resource.
Leafy and imposing trees, cork oaks grow up to a height of 82 feet and live for up to 300 years. They produce oxygen, but also have a unique cell structure that enables them to retain carbon dioxide, a principle cause of global warming.
Harvested Sustainably in Portugal Ancient forests of cork oak (Quercus suber) in Portugal’s Alentejo region produce more than half of the world’s cork supply. The medium-sized evergreens live between 150 to 250 years. Trees can first be harvested for cork, which doesn’t harm the tree, at about 25 years of age. Subsequent harvests, after the bark has regrown, are made at nine to 12 year intervals; about 12 times in a tree’s lifetime. It is truly the tree that keeps on giving. CORK IS THE NEW LEATHER: It's not only fashionable, but cork is also durable, lightweight, water and stain resistant and best of all, natural, organic, and sustainable...This amazing material is the hip, green alternative to leather.
The life cycle of cork as a raw material starts with the extraction of the bark, the so-called harvest, which is carried out from end-May to the end-August. The first stripping produces virgin cork which is used for other applications than cork stoppers – flooring, insulation, decoration, aquarium, terrarium etc – since its quality is not good enough to manufacture stoppers. Nine years later, the harvest produces material with a regular structure, suitable for cork stoppers – the normal and usual corkwood. After the harvest, the cork planks are stacked in piles either in the forest or in yards at a factory. After seasoning, corkwood is boiled to remove organic solids lodged in the lenticels/pores. Planks are then stabilized, selected by quality/thickness and conveyed for the right usage: Wine stoppers – the top grades, proper thickness. Cork discs – champagne and technical stoppers. Natural blocks – flooring, decorative, shoe. Cork paper and cork textile.
Cork is extremely light, impermeable to liquids and gases, elastic and compressible, an excellent thermal and acoustic insulator, highly resistant to fire, equally resistant to wear and tear, but above all cork is 100% natural, recyclable, biodegradable and hypoallergenic - three crucial attributes for a society that is seeking to become less polluted and more environmentally aware.
Cork is 100% natural, recyclable, biodegradable, water-resistant, and light in weight, making cork products functional, yet Earth-friendly Show off your fashion sense while being eco-friendly with fashion cork handbags and wallets
CORK CARE: If your bag gets a little dirty from normal usage or sustains a scuff mark or stain, simply scrub with a small brush dipped in a mild soap and water solution. That should do the trick!
Cork customers are awed by the fact that “this purse is made from a tree” and respond overwhelmingly to the organic feel and sophisticated look of cork.
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