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February 01, 2024
Our Ultra Premium, Seawater Sourced chalk is finally here and ready to help you sustainably send your next project with it’s high-purity, high-friction magnesium carbonate!
So what makes it premium? For one, our chalk is made with high purity food grade magnesium carbonate which is produced from ocean minerals. Zero fillers. No rosin. No destructive mining.
When it comes to sustainability, we also utilize as many natural processes as possible to help save on energy and lower the carbon footprint. This includes using solar evaporation vs desalination (or electrolysis) to separate the minerals from the water in our product.
We also went the extra mile with our packaging by selecting the most sustainable and innovative materials on the market. Our loose chalk is packaged in Sugarcane based packaging where the organic content is ~65% of the total material weight. This helps offset the traditional inputs while keeping the packaging as a mono-material which is recyclable as a regular plastic bag (check with your local recycling depot). We chose this over biodegradable / compostable bags as those tend to disrupt the recycling and compost stream when intermixed, resulting in more landfill waste.
If this didn’t go far enough, we have also partnered with Pachama to purchase carbon credits that ensure our bags have an overall negative* carbon footprint.
(*We purchase carbon credits based on the full weight of these bags)
So we hope you enjoyed learning a little more about what makes our Seawater chalk special
February 01, 2024
It's the elephant in the closet when it comes to chalk products. Grip enhancers. Almost every liquid chalk out there has some form of enhancer, but no one really wants to talk about them.
The most common form of enhancer is rosin / resin, which also goes by the names colophonium, styrax benzonin gum and pine resin, among others. In France, the common name is “poff” and has had extensive use in areas like Fontainebleu. It's basically hardened tree sap which is ground down to a fine powder and added to the mix - and while it may help you "stick" that problem, it is likely also slowly damaging the rock in the process - and that never sat well with us.
The general consensus is that the overuse of rosin leads to polished holds that are nearly impossible to clean - especially when the residue embeds in softer rock such as sandstone.
In addition, rosin is also a common skin irritant, which can lead to allergic contact dermatitis in its use. It’s the same ingredient that causes some individuals to get a rash after using certain types of band-aids or tapes.
It is for these reasons that we have decided to remove all forms of rosins / resin from our ingredient list, effective immediately. We have also done so while retaining the great climbing qualities of Midnight Lightning liquid chalk. We can work together to help protect our sensitive climbing areas and ensure that our sport is accessible (and fun) for future generations.
February 01, 2024
Plastic. It's a wondrous material that has been a boon to humanity, allowing us to produce products which we could have never before dreamed of. Of course, we have also learned that plastic has a very dark side, from it's production using hydrocarbons, to the challenges with it's end-of-life.
We often get asked why we chose to go the route of placing our loose chalk in plastic bags and why we didn't choose to put it in compostable, biodegradable or even just paper bags. To be fair, it's a good question and one that we really had to dig into when balancing many factors. Things like energy and material inputs, durability, moisture barrier properties and of course how to deal with them at end of life.
We had initially thought that compostable or biodegradable bags would be an easy and clear winner, but after many countless hours of research, we realized that biodegradable and compostable bags were, in general, anything but green. The main challenges associated with these bags is how they are disposed of, collected and eventually processed. You see, in most municipalities biodegradable bags and compostable bags cannot be placed in your green bin. There are many reasons for this, from facilities not having the ability to sort biodegradable plastic from non-biodegradable plastic in compost, to the bags not being broken down completely and causing issues around compost distribution (many instances where landowners and farms have rejected compost due to high uncompensated plastic content).
Paper has its own challenges, such as very high water and energy usage in production, durability challenges and also the lack of vapour barrier which can result in product spoilage in humid environments.
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