Blueprint For Success

by Sarah Weimer

The Winter 1997 CalMAX catalog reports that throughout Sonoma County, Boys and Girls Clubs, as well as creative teachers, are using nearly 100 pounds per month of blueprint paper supplied by the North Coast Builders Exchange for drawing activities. Elsewhere, creative minds are dreaming up even more applications for used blueprints than its conventional use as drawing paper.

Just look at Gia Giasullo’s company, Studio eg. This company designs EcoWork, a modular office furniture system constructed from organic and recycled materials. Studio eg sought reusable material to employ in designing promotional brochures and found used blueprints, or bluelines, to be a viable source of paper products.

Even though blueprint paper is of very high quality fiber, its chemical content precludes it from being recyclable because of chemical reactions that occur during the recycling process and subsequent hazardous fumes. Reuse, rather than recycling, seemed to be the best approach for extending the useful life of this resource.

Meanwhile, Tara Gauthier, a Community Development Assistant with the City of Morgan Hill, got the idea for using blueprints as stationery when she saw stationery at a gift shop that had been made from the other side of old nautical charts. She thought this was a very attractive way to use the old charts.

Through CalMAX, Giasullo was able to contact Gauthier and a successful match was made! Before reusing the blueprints, they needed to call the architectural and engineering firms that supplied the paper to get permission to use it as stationery. The firms preferred that the engineering stamps be removed from the paper, which Gauthier obligingly did.

With careful research and development, Studio eg is looking into the possibility of creating a line of stationery products from reused blueprints collected from architectural and engineering firms throughout Morgan Hill. Giasullo credits CalMAX and other resources for introducing the possibility of using bluelines and states that CalMAX continues to be a valuable resource for her company.

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Last updated: August 01, 2008