Captain Cork

Captain Cork?

Ina De Quint star­ted her brand in 2018 as a tri­bu­te to her decea­sed father. The envi­ron­men­tally cons­cious man taught his chil­dren how to recy­cle, reuse and con­su­me slowly and also had a few pro­jects of his own. He bought a hou­se in Por­tu­gal, which he wan­ted to con­vert into a fully self-suf­fi­cient, eco­lo­gi­cal home when he reti­red. Ina regu­larly went to Por­tu­gal to take care of the admi­nis­tra­tion and accoun­ting of the pro­ject. Together they were impres­sed by the eco­lo­gi­cal mira­cle cork that is being pro­ces­sed in that region. Unfor­tu­na­tely Ina’s daddy, the Cap­tain, died at the age of 59 of esopha­geal can­cer and he never mana­ged to reali­ze his Por­tu­gue­se dream. Ina deci­ded to say goodb­ye to her career in the busi­ness and let the dream live on with Cap­tain Cork: hand­bags, hats, jewe­llery, shoes and even baby toys in cork!

Cork is good for the planet

“The cork industry in Por­tu­gal ori­gi­nally lived from making cork stop­pers for the wine and cava industry and this sin­ce Dom Perig­non bottled his cham­pag­ne with cork in the 17^th cen­tury. A few years ago, the wine industry swit­ched to synthe­tic wine stop­pers. The cork manu­fac­tu­rers were obli­ged to find a new mar­ket and they found it in the lifesty­le sec­tor.” Ina says. 

The cork tree actually brings many advan­ta­ges for the envi­ron­ment. For exam­ple, a pee­led cork tree con­verts 3 to 5 times more CO2 into oxy­gen, thus absor­bing energy to rege­ne­ra­te its bark. Tha­t’s why the plan­ta­tions are often seen by bio­lo­gists as the Ama­zon rain­fo­rest of Euro­pe. The cork trees are pee­led every 8 to 10 years. The bark is then bent and has to be remo­ved. By remo­ving its bark, the tree can pro­du­ce more bark and the­re­fo­re more oxy­gen. Cork is also a rene­wa­ble mate­rial. The trees do not need to be chop­ped down and the­re­fo­re do not need to be plan­ted over and over again.

In order to arri­ve at an end pro­duct, the cork industry in Por­tu­gal tries to be as eco­lo­gi­cal as pos­si­ble. Cork is pee­led and dried and cut into small pie­ces. The thin strips of bark are ​‘tan­ned’ by water pro­ces­ses into a soft, fle­xi­ble and smooth mate­rial. No che­mi­cals or toxins are used. Cork is purely natu­ral and com­ple­tely vegan.

Good place to work

All pro­duc­tion of Cap­tain Cork takes pla­ce in Por­tu­gal. In order to manu­fac­tu­re cork, you need to be very pre­ci­se. The industry calls in pro­fes­sio­nals for this.
They are among the highest paid wor­kers in Euro­pe. Be care­ful, becau­se not all cork in the world is equally sus­tai­na­ble. Asian cork or Euro­pean cork that is pro­ces­sed in Asia is much less eco­lo­gi­cally sound. The cork is often of poor qua­lity and poorly tan­ned. For exam­ple, the che­mi­cal glue used by the cork fac­to­ries the­re con­tains ani­mal com­po­nents, dan­ge­rous che­mi­cals are relea­sed during the pro­duc­tion pro­cess and the trans­port ensu­res a lar­ger eco­lo­gi­cal foot­print.
Be care­ful whe­re you buy your cork acces­so­ries. In Bel­gium, the best pla­ce to buy them is at Cap­tain Cork!

Short/​overall

Would you rather keep it envi­ron­men­tally friendly and vegan in your life?
Spoil your­self with an acces­sory from Cap­tain Cork.