Eco-friendly Information
This is how we keep our Designs, Manufacturing, Waste Management and Packaging as Eco-friendly as possible.
Eco-friendly Design
How each of our tortoise house designs keep your energy costs down is detailed on the individual product pages.
Generally speaking our houses are well-insulated and kept to minimum sizes appropriate for species sizes and cleaning practicalities. This means that the energy required to run heatlamps outside is kept to a minimum when used with a good quality dimmer thermostat (which should protect against over-heating with appropriate use of our side vents). Often in warm weather our thermostats turn our heatlamps off completely. In weather cool enough to keep the tortoises in the house overnight, the heatlamps will be turned down by the thermostat when the outside tortoise door is closed. Each the thermostats and our Insulated Houses are saving you a small fortune in energy costs
Manufacturing
Cosy Tortoises source all of our wood including our plywood from sustainably well-managed forests certified by the FSC and PEFC grading codes that are similar to Fairtrade certification but for wood.
The insulation we use is made from aluminium foil and a very thin plastic layer which keeps our insulation minimal but effective whilst allowing good ventilation between layers to ensure moisture travels out of the walls rather than trapping it within.
Prior to manufacturing all of our wood is untreated so there are no un-neccesary chemical treatments often used with outdoor products. This means there will be no leaching of chemicals into the ground when the wood is rained on.
All of the finished products are treated with low-VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) paint or stain that minimises the impact of sealing and protecting the wood so that is lasts well. VOCs - Volatile Organic Compounds are the scientific name for solvent chemicals that evaporate into gases in the air around us. Our personal rule of thumb is if you can smell solvents then you are breathing them! Personally we think protecting our tortoises from chemicals of any description is the only way. Thankfully, there are now fantastic quality wood stain and garden paints that protects wood for years as well as being low in solvents and completely safe for pets when they are dry.
Waste Management
Most of our wood waste goes to people who re-use the cuttings recreationally or as wonky kindling for wood-burning stoves. The remainder goes to a local waste management facility that sends wood waste to be chipped as a start product for many types of recycled timber-boards.
Most of our metal waste, all waste paper, cardboard and formed plastic packaging is recycled at our local waste management facility as well.
Separating our waste in the above ways ensures that we keep our landfill waste to a minimum.
Packaging
We source all of our packaging locally. All of our cardboard is at least second-hand because we re-use packaging of materials delivered to us. We also collect used boxes by agreement from local businesses helping to increase their eco-credentials too!
Pages menu and Payment Information
Please see the Order Houses page for details about how to order Tortoise housing from Cosy Tortoises.
Visit our Shop to buy other Cosy Tortoises products such as Seeds, Calcium and Heating and Light packages.
If you need advice before ordering, please see our Contact page and consult our Order Houses page which includes our Terms and Conditions.
