Ecoslat Basswood slats meet a range of needs from more economical to high quality pencils
California Cedar Products Company applied our extensive knowledge about the processing of various wood species in the sawmill, pencil slat facility and pencil manufacturing to develop the Ecoslat® Basswood product in the late 1990’s and began producing this product range in our Tianjin, China facility in 2001. Our Basswood program product mix is designed to meet the quality and performance standards required by our customers for a range of products from high quality pencils to more
Slat Dimensions
Ecoslat® Basswood slats are currently available in our Standard Dimension product formats consistent with our Incense-cedar slat product range with certain Special Dimensions including 127mm memos and special thickness slats available on a custom order basis.
Slat Grades
Basswood slat grades have been developed to concentrate on providing customers with an efficient and economical product range to be used in production of a broad variety of both high quality as well as more value oriented pencils. Slats are available in both Mix and Utility grades in all plies.
Slat Stain & Wax Treatment
CCPC has adapted our proprietary wax & stain treatment and drying process to optimize the technical and economic performance of Basswood slats during manufacturing into pencils as well as use in the final pencil form. This proprietary process assures consistent wax and stain penetration, drying, and dimensional stability as well as meeting the industry’s highest consumer product safety standards.
Third Party Certifications and Product Safety Considerations
Given growing Chinese Wood Consumption and concerns about the sustainability and legal harvest considerations for many wood species grown and harvested in Northeast China and the Russian Far East, CalCedar has implemented a stringent program of raw material supply chain documentation to assure clear positioning of each Basswood product range as well as compliance with various regulatory requirements around the world.
- Ecoslat® Basswood FSC Range – Basswood Raw material for this range is certified FSC 100% (FSC-C010858) under the principles and criteria of the Forest Stewardship Council. It comes only from forests certified to be managed by Chinese Forest Bureaus (state run forest management business units) to the FSC standards and procedures and is subject to outside third party review of the forests and chain of custody from the forests through each stage of the manufacturing process. This range represents the highest standards of assurance in environmental and social values available in Basswood pencil slats in the world today. It is also fully compliant with U.S. Lacey Act requirements.
- Ecoslat® Basswood LAC Range – This range is managed to be fully compliant with the requirements of the U.S. Lacey Actas well as newly developing EU standards with respect to the harvest, production and marketing of legal, non-threatened plant species. Under this U.S. law pencils sold in the United States must be produced only from wood that is legally harvested and uses non-threatened plant species, regardless of the country of origin of the pencils themselves. All Basswood Raw material for our LAC Range is currently sourced from forests within China. CalCedar has worked with outside certification consultants and our Chinese wood suppliers to design internal supply chain standards and review processes to assure to the best of our ability that wood used in these slats comes only from legally harvested, non-threatened Basswood species. CCPC provides self-certification on this range as per standards of the U.S. regulations. As a U.S. owned and operated company we believe our LAC product standards to be more stringent than any other slat competitors exporting slats from China who also self-certify as to Lacey Act compliance, but are more difficult to monitor and hold accountable.
- Ecoslat® Basswood Range – This range includes Basswood slats produced from trees that are harvested within the geographic region known as Far East Russia. While we insist our suppliers provide us with acceptable documentation on the sources and supply chain of the wood used in this range they may not consistently meet our verification standards for our LAC product range. See our About Basswood section to better understand current supply and economic trends for this species for the pencil industry as related to growing demands for sustainable, legally harvested wood sources globally.
All Ecoslat® Basswoodslat products are also certified under the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) PMA Certification program and are fully compliant with the highest standards of consumer products safety in the U.S., EU and elsewhere.
Contact us at Sales@calcedar.com for assistance in determining the optimum species, dimensional and grade product specification requirements to fit your intended production and target cost requirements.
