Due to the geological size and formation of soapstone deposits, this material is still quarried using a very rudimentary method. Wire, sand and water is used to extract blocks from the quarry, no other chemicals are used. Geographically speaking, very minimum, if any, deforestation takes place, since the region where our soapstone is extracted is a mountainous cerrado (savannah). Our soapstone is extracted some 4,000km (approximately 2,485 miles) away from the rainforest.
The soapstone “boom” which began to take place in the last decade, has helped local communities by decreasing unemployment rates, increasing tax revenue and improvement in local services such as road building, water, sewer and electricity infrastructure.
How It’s Made produced a video about it that is very informative (just avert your eyes when they get to how they build the sink using butt joints instead of tongue and groove) :
In Our Shop
We try to be as conscientious as possible when using resources. One of the demands of a stone shop is water. Using water and sending it into the sewer system is irresponsible. For that reason, we have invested in systems designed to re-use the water over and over. The water runs into a collection pit, is pumped through a heavy duty filtering system and stored in huge tanks inside our shop. We are seeing the same water pass through our machines a couple of times every day. We are able to hose down our floors using this same water to keep a safe and clean shop environment, and that makes us feel really good.
During the summer months we do our best to exhaust all heat produced by the machinery outside. However, during the winter months we go green by circulating the exhaust back into our building.