Let’s Clay and
the environment

Ceramics is inherently not an environmentally friendly craft, as a big amount of energy is used to fire our kilns and turn our clay into things to bring home, and though our clay and raw materials are sourced in nature, they cannot be reused once fired.

We would like to tell you more about we do to keep our resource consumption down, and what we do to give back to the environment.

Passing on good habits

Let’s Clay is at its core a place for teaching and learning, and the most important thing we like to pass on are the good habits of working with our wonderful craft. We inform all our students of the environmental impacts working with ceramics can have, and how Let’s Clay are working to alleviate as many of them as we can.

Clay, glaze and raw materials

Let’s Clay are teaching ceramics at all levels, including beginners, so we do inevitably see some oopsies happening at the throwing wheel. Instead of wasting the clay from our students collapsed pieces, we collect all of it and turn it back into usable clay for new students.

The same goes for when we are cleaning our tools after glazing - all of this happens into the “glaze-soup bucket” (wouldn’t try tasting it though), which will be turned back into a usable, unique glaze for new pieces.

For teaching purposes we do have chemically/laboratory produced materials for making glazes, but all glazes used in the studio are made from natural materials.

Focus on water consumption and cleaning

We reuse as much as possible, and that includes water. We let the buckets of muddy clay-water from our throwing classes separate into pure reusable water and fine clay (which is also made back into reusable clay).

Teaching ceramics and working with clay can be quite messy, and require a fair share of cleaning. Let’s Clay save on water when cleaning, only using a single bucket of clean water to clean up at the end of classes. The weekly thorough scrub down of our studio is provided by Renest Rengøring, who is committed to doing what they can for the environment, in regards to chemicals and transportation. Read more about their efforts in Danish here.

Electricity from sustainable sources

Our kilns use quite a lot of energy to reach their peak temperature at 1.260 degreesC. Let’s Clay use green, sustainable energy provided from Modstrøm. Read more about them and their plan here.

Charity donations

Not all pieces our student make at Let’s Clay is being kneaded back into reusable clay - many of them are being glazed, fired and turned into beautiful things for our students to bring home and hopefully cherish for many years.

To pay nature back for the energy we use to make and fire them, Let’s Clay donates a portion of our sales to nature preserving charities for every student who attends our weekly classes.

Just to be clear!

Before you go, we would like to point out that - of course - most potters and ceramicists do what they can to keep their environmental impact as low as possible. We have in fact learnt many of our own ways and methods from our colleagues around the world. Thank you!

Can we do more?

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our studio. If you have any questions, or if you have ideas on how we can do more, please get in touch through hello@letsclay.dk.