Sylvacurl is a sustainable packaging and gift basket filler. Sylvacurl is:
- an environmentally friendly alternative to packaging peanuts for shipping,
- an ecologically sound alternative to plastic gift basket grass for presentations,
- made by a small business in the USA.
Sylva is an adjective meaning forested, woodsy, wild or uncultivated, so Sylva-curl means forest curl or wood curl.
Sylvacurl is manufactured in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. When you use Sylvacurl you support sustainable forestry practices in northern Vermont. Small businesses like Sylvacurl create jobs and help to build local and small community economies by adding value to our natural resources. When you use Sylvacurl packaging products you also help your own and your customers’ solid waste disposal challenges because Sylvacurl does not need to enter the landfill.
Sylvacurl Standard Curls are a high performance packaging material that provides a safe, green shipping environment for your products. Interlocking curls cushion delicate items and prevent your products from shifting in transit. Sylvacurl natural packaging material offers a healthy alternative to many types of packing and shipping products including Styrofoam peanuts and shredded or crumpled paper. Sylvacurl eco- friendly wood curls are naturally static free, and completely biodegradable. We do not add anything to our curls to preserve them. No harsh chemicals ever used!
Sylvacurl Standard Curls make the perfect base material for potpourri. They hold their shape and keep botanical ingredients suspended. The curls hold essential oils and scents well. The curls may also be dyed to enhance your products or match a seasonal theme. We recommend using Createx liquid dyes or other non toxic dyes for this purpose.
Sylvacurl Fine Cut is a beautiful and healthy alternative to basket grass, fillers and tissue papers. This is an all natural and safe material made to enhance any product presentation from seeds and plants, to foods, gifts, to cosmetics.
Lifecycle
Sylvacurl is made from Aspen trees, locally called popple. Aspen was used historically for tongue depressors and toothpicks. Aspen trees can grow back from their roots after they have been cut for a cut and grow again culture. They are a fast growing tree with a short life cycle of only twenty to forty years. Aspen trees are the first trees to grow up along field edges on farms, in the woodlands, and along roadsides in Vermont. They are often the pioneer species of trees that provide some cover for longer living hardwood and evergreen seedlings. When they are cut as part of a planned forest culture the secondary longer living trees grow next in the forest succession.
Recycle and Compost Sylvacurl
Once Sylvacurl has been used as a packaging material it can be reused and recycled in many ways. Sylvacurl Fine Cut or Standard Curls can be reused as packaging until the curls begin to break up. They can be uses by florists in arrangements, by crafts folks, and children in many creative ways. The curls make a wonderful fire starter for your wood stove or fireplace. Curls are also good for adding dry matter to your compost bucket, bin or pile. The curls make soft, absorbent animal bedding for hamsters, rabbits and even chickens and calves! The spent curls make attractive and useful garden mulch to keep weeds down and hold moisture in the soil. Eventually the curls naturally decompose into soil. Decomposing wood curls add carbon and air pockets to soils and help to improve heavy or compacted soils as they biodegrade. They give worms and other soil organisms good food. It’s all part of a natural cycle.
Imagine, compostable packaging… it makes sense!
