What We Do
Here at Hands on Crayons, we have a love for two things: coloring and taking care of the environment. While these two qualities are more often than not, completely separate entities, at Hands on Crayons they could not be more intertwined. Crayons are primarily made up of a combination of color pigment and paraffin wax-- both of which aren't good for the environment (see The Environmental Impact for more on this riveting subject). What we do at Hands on Crayons is collect all of your unwanted crayons and remold them into what is often described as a "shark tooth-like" crayon (see Our "Shark-Tooth" Crayon for more). Not only are we helping to declutter your shelves, craft rooms, and classrooms, but we are taking these unwanted crayons and giving them a second life. And in this so called "second life" these crayons will be used by enthusiastic kids to help better their fine-motor development. Sounds pretty awesome doesn't it?
The Environmental Impact
12 million or 60 tons of crayons are made every day in the United States alone. Thats a whole lot of crayons! Unfortunately the main ingredient in crayons, paraffin wax, is a non-biodegradable substance. This means that your unused crayons will sit in landfills for millenniums to come. When you put these two facts together it means that everyday, we create 60 tons of crayons and paraffin wax every single day that will eventually end up in landfills.
This is where the idea of upcycling comes into play. We don’t see a broken crayon as broken, or a melted crayon as melted, but we see these unwanted crayons as an oppurtunity to make something extraordinary. Melted, broken, worn-down, or new, a crayon is still chemically the same. What we do at Hands on Crayons is take these unwanted crayons, melt them down, and our Hands on Crayons Magic to turn these old crayons into something new and awesome. We understand that nothing is better than writing with a new crayon, but we also need to understand that there are tons of crayons all around us that just need some love and care to be turned into something totally amazing.