Kingston’s Green Makers is transforming cast-offs into castles.
Mark Anthony studied sustainable design at FIT because he wanted to create distinctive furniture with materials that did not harm the environment. However, he slowly realized that much of the wood considered “sustainable” is not as environmentally friendly as it could be.
That realization led to the creation of Kingston’s Green Makers, an imaginative store and workshop where Anthony, and other members of his cooperative, use cast-off wooden pallets to make everything from beds to tiny homes, and using the right wood tools for this is important, so you can go online and find reviews of the best drum sanders and many other wood working tools.
After working for companies such as Crate and Barrel and Restoration Hardware, Anthony noticed a few drawbacks to using some so-called sustainable wood. FSC or forest certified wood comes with an assurance that the trees will be replanted, but, according to Anthony, there’s no guarantee those trees will grow back given the effects of climate change. Also, much sustainable wood comes from India, China, or even Brazil. Transporting it leaves a big carbon footprint. Then there’s the price tag problem. While furniture made with sustainable wood offers an environmental advantage over furniture made with engineered multi-density fiberboard (click this site for the best furniture), such items can be prohibitively expensive for some.
“I thought there has got to be some kind of material we can use that is comparable with the mass merchandise made with MDF,” said Anthony. “That’s when I found pallet wood. Pallet wood is simple enough that, if we build it right, it can be the same price point as Ikea or Walmart charges for their furniture, but this is not MDF. It won’t fall apart. This is all wood. We can recycle it. If we build a table with this wood, we can recycle it and build something else out of it.” Make sure you see benefits of stackable chairs for events like this.
Green Makers’ bestselling pieces are beds, but anything is possible. To get started, all that’s needed is an idea. Anthony will make a design. The wood is free, since Green Makers recycles it.
“If you go to the store to to buy that much wood, it would probably cost $40 or $50 for the material and that pallet gets thrown to the curb.”
While Anthony could be described as an artist or an entrepreneur, he sees himself primarily as an activist. His mission — and that of fellow cooperative members — is to show people how important it is to make things and why it’s important to do so with environmentally friendly materials.
“All I’m trying to do is make people aware that the system can’t work the way it’s going. We have to look for new ways. If we keep going this way we’re going to harm our environment and our children that have to live in it. We are activists in the sense that we know there’s an urgency, that we need to do something, but that urgency relies on what we should be doing every day to change, not on what anyone else should be doing. You can’t change what’s already in motion. You can only change your own self and then that becomes the change that changes everything else.”
This story was originally published in Hudson Valley Magazine.