Many of you are aware of Marcus Fabrics' OASIS CANVAS collection, a group of décor weight solid fabrics made from 100% certified organic cotton.  It's also colored with dyes that are eco-friendly, and we've recently introduced new colors to round out a great range of home décor basics and earthtones. With our collective and ever-growing interest in preserving the planet in ways both large and small, we thought you might be interested to learn about some of our other "green" efforts:

• The boards that hold our fabrics in your favorite quilt shops are made from 100% recycled post-consumer waste, in this case, more specifically from old corrugated containers and mixed paper from magazines to office paper and more.   The mill, U.S. Corrugated, Inc., was formed in 1991-92 and holds the distinction of being the first fully-recycled paper mill in North America.  It's also a paper mill that utilized a closed loop water system, so that during processing, no water is discharged from the mill into the rivers, streams, or public water systems, among other environmentally responsible practices.
• Increasingly, free "paperless projects" are available online at www.MarcusFabrics.com.  We're shifting our free project focus to PDF format for print-on-demand convenience, so you can easily download these from our Make It With Marcus section individually, as needed.  This not only saves  paper, but also the inks and other production costs, plus the resources needed to ship printed project sheets to our warehouse locations, then again to retailers and distributors.  Of course, retailers and distributors can still contact us with their needs on specific printing needs for special promotions.
• We now recommend cold-water washing of our fabrics.  This reduces energy consumption used to heat the water, and colder temperatures also reduce the levels of lead found in the water.
• In our offices, we've all increased our efforts even in small measures to stretch resources.  We've always used recycled photocopy & printer papers, and we recycle a step further by printing inter-office communications on the backs of previously printed memos, using ceramic mugs in place of paper cups & plastic lids, and recycling beverage containers.
• In addition, we continue to "recycle" our fabric samples & scraps in the form of shipments to our Guild Connection members, as a way of supporting their charitable quilting projects all year long.  For details about our free fabric donations, visit our Guild Connection page.

Stay tuned for our latest eco-friendly developments and improvements!