I feel really uplifted after meeting Tim Gordon yesterday. Tim is a Designer in the San Francisco office of William McDonough + Partners, and it was inspiring and rewarding to have the opportunity to meet with someone who truly appreciated Fireclay Tile for both it's beauty and resourcefulness.

As many of you might already know, William McDonough is the author of Cradle to Cradle and his architectural firm is a pioneer in green design.

Being an efficient scavenger by nature, I have been making ceramic products and tiles from waste products generated in the Bay Area. I started getting serious about working with recycled materials in the 1990's because I found waste sandblast aggregate from a Sunnyvale, CA computer chip maker. In the late 90's I developed the matrix which makes up our Debris Series tiles. It is currently made with waste glass particles, granite dust particles and collected spent abrasives.

Sustainability still has a long way to go. Many people talk about it but don't actually live it. Thanks to businesses like William McDonough + Partners sustainability is continually being refined and improved. I one day hope to meet Mr. McDonough to discuss our mutual passion for green design, and of course hope to see Fireclay Tile in one of their upcoming projects.

- Paul, Chief Ceramicist

About William McDonough & Partners

William McDonough + Partners is a design firm of 40 architects, planners, designers, and support staff. In 1994, the practice was relocated from New York to Charlottesville when William McDonough was named dean of the University of Virginia's School of Architecture. From the Charlottesville studio, the firm established a leading role in sustainable design through a diverse range of notable projects. In 2006, they opened a studio in San Francisco, California to strengthen its solid presence in the Bay Area. More recently, in response to the growing interest in Cradle to Cradle in the Netherlands, it opened a studio in Amsterdam, from which the practice will base its ongoing work in the Netherlands and the EU. Despite the distances between the three locations, the firm operates as one office with daily interaction between the studios. This approach allows them to combine the capacity of a large firm with the agility of a small one. William McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and winner of three U.S. presidential awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the National Design Award (2004), and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003).

April Fools Email - New “Green” Line

April 1, 2010 | filed under: Fun-Eco Stories Fireclay Manufacturing Company News Debris Series

We got a GREAT response from our April Fool’s email. Check it out here:

April Fools Fireclay Tile Email Blast

Fireclay Mosaic Classes Featured in San Jose Mercury News - March 2010

March 24, 2010 | filed under: Design Ideas Fun-Eco Stories Press Company News Showroom/Boneyard

A few months ago we decided to further embrace our local San Jose community and start to offer Mosaic Tiling Classes taught by Delaine Hackney. Given how unique a tile treasure our Boneyard is, we thought what could be more fun than bringing in an expert to teach locals about both mosaic tiling and our unique, recycled sustainable tile. Though we are a manufacturer and sell our tile nationwide through a dedicated group of phenomenal dealers, we hate to throw anything away and use our Boneyard as a way to ensure each and every piece of Fireclay Tile finds a great home.

Our first class was a HUGE success!!!

The San Jose Mercury News wrote a wonderful article titled Oakland artist Delaine Hackney teaches students to make mosaics of favorite pets! Most impressive are the works of art that the class created. The Fireclay Ceramicists are quite impressed, and we look forward to many more classes and new creative designs to come from our Boneyard. Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 1

Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 1

Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 2

Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 3

Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 4

Fireclay Tile San Jose Mosaic Tile Class Creation 5

Pet Portraiture with Delaine Hackney is April 3, 10 and 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Fireclay.Class fee is $130, including materials. For more information, e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Thread Collaborative - AWESOME Article about Fireclay!

December 2, 2009 | filed under: Fun-Eco Stories Fireclay Manufacturing Press Company News Debris Series

Our friends Kevin and Aleida at Thread Collaborative conducted an interview with Paul at GreenBuild last month. We think they did a GREAT job highlighting why we love working at Fireclay and the mission of the company.

The post can be viewed here, and we have copied the text below:

stories of sustainability: Fireclay Tile
by kevin, on December 2nd, 2009

For anyone unfamiliar with Fireclay Tile, they are a manufacturer of wonderful handcrafted artisan tiles located in San Jose CA. I say artisan because their approach, character, manner, and products are more aligned with old-world ideals than modern technology. Just before the exhibition floor opened at Greenbuild 2009, Aleida and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Paul Burns, the founder and chief ceramicist of Fireclay Tile, to talk about company history and personal back story.

Paul started the business with three partners in 1986 but tile production runs in the family. He learned the trade from his uncle when he was just ten years old. Paul is a tinkerer and problem solver at heart. He describes himself as a scavenger interested in efficiency rather than someone with hard core environmental concerns. Although many of his products are composed of recycled material, their creation has come about due to Paul’s impulse to fashion unique solutions and uncover value where others only see useless waste. He seems to thrive in situations where others have tried and failed.

A key year for the company came in 1998 when an adjacent business, one of the largest rock quarries in Northern California, approached Paul with an intriguing challenge — what to do with a by-product of their asphalt gravel production process. After more than eighty years of production the company had accumulated a tremendous quantity of waste rock dust and had yet to develop a use for it. This kind of task seemed perfectly suited to Paul’s disposition, but after a year of research he was still struggling to convert the substance into a viable commercial product. With so much of it available, Paul’s first inclination was to use as much as possible and produce a tile made with a very high percentage of the rock dust. But he discovered the same shortfall as others before him — the stuff was hard to work with.

Another year was spent approaching the issue from a different angle. Instead of maximizing the dust content but creating a terribly unattractive product, he decided to pull back on the dust to determine the point where he could produce an attractive and marketable tile. The final mix used twenty-six percent, and the Debris Series tile was born. That line now also includes twenty-six percent post-consumer glass and six percent spent abrasive from pipe sand blasting. Today the formulation has more than sixty percent recycled content with approximately forty percent being post-consumer.

As Paul describes it, “the thing about clay and ceramics is that there’s flexibility in the chemicals and formulas so they easily accept the use of other materials into the mix.” Although I knew a bit about ceramic processes prior to this interview, that was new to me. He went on to say, “once you fire the product, you purify it. If impurities exist, even bacteria or other harmful compounds, they are made inert when fired.” One example of this was when another local company was discontinuing the use of lead-based glazes for ceramic products. Fireclay Tile mixed the toxic glaze into the body of their tile and essentially sealed the lead, rendered it harmless, and diverted it away from potential environmental harm had it ended up in a landfill.

Armed with knowledge accumulated through the two years required to bring the Debris Series to market, Paul started looking at other opportunities to utilize other waste material. The post consumer recycled glass used in the Debris tiles is actually a waste material rather than recycled. Super fine dust is created during the crushing process after used glass bottles are collected, sorted, and ground into cullet. The cullet is then most commonly used to create new glass, but the dust isn’t typically employed in the same manner. Its small size makes it difficult to clean and sort so it rarely ends up in recycled glass, but it can be used as a filler material for other products. Fireclay’s Bottlestone counter top line are slabs composed of eighty percent waste glass dust.

Other companies have also approached Paul with interesting challenges for utilizing specific waste products produced by their businesses, but we were sworn to secrecy and will hopefully be allowed to give a sneak peek when the products get closer to launch. But I have to say that one in particular sounds really interesting. I can’t wait to see how it progresses.

In addition to developing new products, Paul and his team are constantly looking to maximize their efficiency by using waste from their own facility as raw material for tile products. They’ve started looking into a take-back program, but may limit the scope regionally. Fireclay is very locally minded and is concerned about the overall environmental impact of a product requiring long distance delivery for limited reclaim potential. As an example, the current formulation of Bottlestone limits recycle content of waste Bottlestone to just five percent. They are working on how to increase that number.

Similar to a take-back program is an interesting test they’re currently running. They’re working with the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz to collect as many toilets, sinks, and tubs as possible - they need nearly ten truckloads - to use in the Debris series. Paul says early tests are producing unexpected results. One would presume with so much white vitreous china ground up and added to the clay body, the tile color would be light, but instead it’s dark and gray. The fixtures are pulverized to create a grog which gets mixed in with new clay. Since the grog has already been fired once, it’s far more stable. It’s still too early to tell where this experiment is headed, but I’ll report on it as soon as I hear or see anything.

You would think that Paul’s degree in science from UC Berkley would serve him well with the kind of production problems he’s routinely solving when developing new products, but he likes to say that all the science he uses he learned in high school. With his easygoing nature, it’s easy to hear that and believe him too quickly. But after just thirty minutes with him I get the sense that some serious brain power is being applied.

Although we have never worked together directly, I have been involved with a number of projects where Fireclay Tile products were used and I’ve always been impressed. I can easily recommend this company to anyone interested in using environmentally favorable materials. Do you have any experience with Paul and/or Fireclay? We would love to hear about it.

Thank you, Paul, for your time.

Fireclay Founder, Paul Burns, speaks at California Commonwealth Club

March 2, 2009 | filed under: Fun-Eco Stories Fireclay Manufacturing Press Company News Debris Series Bottlestone

Paul Burns, Founder and President of Fireclay Tile, joined the 5 other California Cleantech Open winners on a panel discussion about the Cleantech Open at the Commonwealth Club. Paul spoke directly about BottleStone, but also shared what it was like as a business owner in the current economic environment focusing on the high growth green building sector. For more on the Cleantech Open please visit www.cleantechopen.com and for the Commonwealth Club please visit www.commonwealthclub.org

Fireclay Featured on The Today Show with Domino Magazine

February 22, 2007 | filed under: Installation Tips and Tricks Fun-Eco Stories Press Company News Debris Series

Fireclay Featured on The Today Show with Domino Magazine

February 22, 2007 | filed under: Installation Tips and Tricks Fun-Eco Stories Press Company News Debris Series

Fireclay Tile: Sustainable, decorative, handmade ceramic tile manufacturer

Posted in: Fun-Eco Stories

Kelly Moore Paint - Sustainable Manufacturing At its Best

The Melt: Glazed Thin Brick and An Exercise in Deliciousness!

Toilet’s Anyone?

Ciao Bella Chooses Fireclay Tile for Ferry Building Location

Balancing Your Receivables - Fireclay Tile in the New York Times

Fireclay Tile featured in Wall Street Journal

New Avenue Homes Features Crush and Debris Series Ecofriendly Tiles

Inspirational Pottery! - Old Town Artisan Studio in La Quinta, CA

Debris Series Recycled Tile Featured in Sunset Magazine

Hardy Jones - A Customer and An Artist

Fireclay Tile Featured on NPR’s Morning Edition

FTC Proposes New Guidelines for Green Marketing Terms

Pacific Community Ventures 2010 Annual Showcase and Luncheon

Over 70% Recycled Tile - Debris Series Now with Recycled Porcelain!

SJ Mercury News: San Jose Tile Maker Reclaims Landfill-Bound Porcelain

Clay Expectations - Featured Artists - Part 1 - Janet Ontko

SF Chronicle: Mosaic artist Pippa Murray an intricate blend

Tips On How To Engage In Your Local Community

How to Energy Retrofit Your Lighting and save $5,000!

A Day in the Fireclay Tile Factory

Our Day with Style Maven Kelly LaPlante

Wonderful New Fireclay Tile Videos

Exciting Alternative Uses for Fireclay Ceramic TIle

Building History in Aromas One Tile At A Time

Visit from Green Cadre - The Future of Green Jobs in San Jose

Visit with Sandhill Glass - 100% Recycled Glass Tile

SFMade - Supporting Local Manufacturing - Launch Event

Watch How It’s Done…Fireclay Sustainable Manufacturing in Action!

Old House Journal: Kitchen Rehabs featuring Fireclay’s Debris Series Recycled Tile

Fireclay Tile for Landscape Architecture - Part 2

The Fuel behind Fireclay Tile: My Day in the Life of a Tile Manufacturer

From the Chief Ceramicist: Reflections on Meeting with Wiliam McDonough & Parters (Cradle to Cradle)

From the Desk of the Chief Ceramicist

About William McDonough & Partners

April Fools Email - New “Green” Line

Fireclay Mosaic Classes Featured in San Jose Mercury News - March 2010

Our first class was a HUGE success!!!

Thread Collaborative - AWESOME Article about Fireclay!

Fireclay Founder, Paul Burns, speaks at California Commonwealth Club

Fireclay Featured on The Today Show with Domino Magazine

Fireclay Featured on The Today Show with Domino Magazine