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Fire & Light Originals (F&L) buys about
9 to 11 tons of clear recycled glass a month from the Arcata Community
Recycling Center and turns it into colorful plates, bowls, vases, and other
handcrafted glassware. F&L’s annual seconds sale is famous, with people
lining up overnight to get in when the doors open at 7 a.m.
 “Fire & Light was started in 1995 by
30 local people who wanted to make something from all the glass that was
being collected at the recycling center and create jobs at the same
time,” explains John McClurg, who bought the company in 1999 with his
wife Natali McClurg. When the McClurgs, both graduates of Humboldt State
University, bought F&L, it had seven employees, eight products and was
selling to 300 stores around the country. Today the company has 22
employees, 32 products and is selling to 1,500 stores. Last year McClurg
flew 78,000 miles on F&L business.
Making Art from Waste Glass
The first step in glass making is removing any plastic and metal caps
and cap rings. The glass is then crushed and weighed out. F&L has an
on-site lab and mixes many of its own colors. The glass is sprayed with
water to moisten it and the colors are added and mixed in barrels. This
blend then goes into one of the three gas-fired furnaces where it is
melted overnight at 2,400 degrees.
When it reaches the correct
temperature and consistency, craft-workers scoop out the molten glass
with a ladle, pour it into a mould, and close the mould which presses
the glass. The piece cools to about 1,000 degrees and some torch work is
done. The finished piece is carried to insulated boxes where it anneals,
a process in which the temperature is lowered very slowly from 900
degrees to room temperature so that the glass does not crack.
 In 2002 F&L moved into its present
17,000-square-foot building that had been a woodworking shop. “We
designed the layout of the ‘hot shop’ and built our own furnaces,”
explains McClurg. “The furnaces are behind a wall to reduce the heat
blasting at the workers. The furnace temperatures range from 2,200 to
2,400 degrees.”
F&L’s glassware comes in lavender,
cobalt, aqua, copper, plum, yellow, and two shades of green. “All but
the lavender and yellow are made using at least 91 percent recycled
glass,” explains McClurg. “These two colors require new glass because
the iron content has to be tightly controlled or the color changes.”
Currently the only recycled glass that F&L uses is clear, but it is
working on a program to be able to use green and brown glass.
 Products, Packaging, and Reuse
F&L’s glassware products are displayed on their website (see URL below).
They also make a multi-colored sea-glass which is used for aquariums,
decorating, and displays. The cullet is from glass broken during the
annealing process. This material has been so popular that McClurg joked
they once had to start breaking dinner plates to make it.
There is a lot of reuse in the
facility, McClurg explains. Excess glass from the mould is put back into
the furnaces. Glass that falls on the shop floor goes to Kernen
Construction, which uses it to make pavement. Several of F&L’s presses
came from a factory that was closing down in Brooklyn. Metal for the
insulating wall came from a local plywood mill as did sheeting for the
flooring. A counterweight for the old annealing ovens came from a log
chipper head in a sawmill, and the company uses old beer kegs from the
local breweries to cool the many ladles that the craftsmen use.
 F&L makes some of its packing
material by shredding cardboard. McClurg attended a workshop and saw a
cardboard shredder in action. He returned and bought one. They now
recycle about 1,000 pounds of cardboard a week that is collected from
neighboring businesses. The shredder has greatly reduced their packing
costs and helped keep their breakage rate very low.
The Future
F&L has the capacity to produce more glassware in their facility. “We
need to expand our markets and sales,” notes McClurg. “One of the
problems is that many of the national chain stores buy glass made
overseas, where workers get paid much less for working much longer
hours. These stores pay much less for their glass and consequently have
higher profit margins. As a result they can pay higher rents in shopping
centers. Because of this, many of the independent stores that carry
handmade products made in the U.S., including ours, are being forced out
of business.”
“People have to appreciate that
products handmade here in the U.S. do cost more,” notes McClurg.
“Complying with local employment, safety, and environmental laws and
providing decent living wages and benefits to workers costs more. Many
of the countries we see glass coming from use child labor, treat their
workers poorly, ignore health and safety issues, and pay little
attention to the environment.”
Contact Information:
John A. McClurg
Fire & Light Originals
45 Ericson Court
Arcata, CA 95521
1-800-844-2223
Fax: (707) 825-7700
glass@fireandlight.com
www.fireandlight.com
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