Eco-Conscious Designers Making Planet-Friendly Products
The Spotted Door is dedicated exclusively to products made from recycled + reclaimed materials.
Our material standard: each item must contain over 50% recycled content.
We find materials that lost their original function to give them a new purpose.
Your purchases make a difference.
Americans discard 16,000+ lbs of trash every second. To put that into perspective, that's an entire school bus every 1.5-seconds.
When you purchase items made from recycled materials, you help divert material from landfills; preserve natural resources; prevent pollution; save energy; and create local jobs.
The solutions are at hand: everything in your home can be designed using recycled materials. Have a look ⇨
I'm often asked why I started The Spotted Door. Well, I worked for many years as a retail merchandise buyer. I reviewed all types of products from thousands of different brands. Occasionally, I’d come across a product made from recycled materials – and I was always so impressed! These brands sourced materials responsibly even if it was harder to do and cost them more money (essentially the opposite method of every mainstream brand). In addition, they chose to hire locally rather than use cheap overseas labor. They searched for ways to use less energy, manufacture more sustainably and remained highly focused on doing the right thing.
The problem I realized was that, when placed next to an identical product not made from recycled materials, these products didn’t stand out on the shelf. They were also hard to find: there wasn’t a store that only carried recycled products (they would usually get lost in “green stores” and catchall marketplaces). Plus, if you did not happen to stumble across one of these products, you probably never knew they existed. In my TEDx Talk (watch it here), I chat about making products from cigarette butts, worn out jeans, old tires and even dirty diapers! So, I searched tirelessly for as many of these products as I could, then figured I’d open a store that featured them exclusively and shared their stories with the world – and thus, The Spotted Door was born.
Not exactly straightforward: often when you purchase something, you are generally familiar with what it is. When buying a t-shirt, for example, you probably only care about the size and what the design looks like. But, what if you were offered an identical t-shirt made from coffee grounds? Your reaction would be totally different! – You might ask if it smells, or if it can be washed, or if it itches, or how it was made, or any number of questions because you are now unfamiliar with something that was previously so familiar.
We once carried these sunglasses made from recycled CDs. If you looked at them, you’d think they were just regular plastic sunglasses. I took them to a local farmer’s market and I only sold maybe 1-2 pairs (it was a long day). What I realized was that people needed to be smacked over the head with the message (figuratively speaking) of why these sunglasses were substantially different; otherwise, they just saw some dude selling green sunglasses. I then made a huge sign like this one to the right for the next farmer’s market and the response was incredible!
The sunglasses example highlights one of The Spotted Door's biggest challenges: we offer everyday products, but we need to educate our visitors about the benefits of using {rather unlikely} recycled materials. We will gladly help answer any of your questions (trust me, I asked them all at one time myself). Once you experience one of our products, I know you will – as we said with the sunglasses – start to "see beyond trash."
Thanks for stopping by!