Menu
We at Folsom Customs are doing all we can to reduce our environmental impact, yet we humbly know we will always have one.
Stimulating our economy is essential to the selling of our product, so everything starts with where we source our materials. 95% of the components in our skis are sourced from here in the USA, and our wood which makes up the the cores of our skis is dimensioned and sold to us by a local Colorado distributor. While some materials must be bought from out of country, we aim to keep those elements at a minimum to ensure that our end product is as finely tuned as possible.
One of our biggest problems in manufacturing is that we are forced to use materials that have a higher environmental cost. Currently, soy/bio resins and plastics are not ready for the abuse skiing places on them, so we are still tied to petroleum based components. However the epoxy is as low impact as we can get and is 99% non-toxic. We recycle all plastics possible and our manufacturing process is honed to produce as little waste as possible. We are using only poplar, bamboo and maple for our cores (no foam or composite cores which rely on more petroleum and complex manufacturing). We have also decided not to use lacquers, topcoats, and silkscreen inks because of their toxic composition. Reducing the impact of our manufacturing process is only the start of our responsibility. For too many industries, the focus seems to be on how cheaply products can be made with little regard to the impact of the actual products. One of the worst, least friendly bi-products of ski manufacturing is the ski itself. So what can we do about that? The first step is to focus on making a product that has the longest useful lifespan as possible. Then, when that lifespan ends, we need to usher that product into a new role so it lives on. At Folsom Customs we will be actively involved in reusing our skis for outdoor furniture, sleds, truck lighting fixtures, art and whatever else we can think of. We can not merely manufacture responsibly. We need to use and reuse responsibly.