OXFORD CLAY
Pottery designed for minimal ecological impact.
Sharing eco-conscious pottery knowledge through books and courses.
Creating eco-conscious pottery
Oxford Clay pottery is handmade in Oxford by Katherine Tomlinson, a Potter passionate about reducing the impact of making pottery, on the Earth.
Designing pottery for the environment
Pottery at Oxford Clay has been specially designed to cause minimal adverse impact on animals, humans and the environment.
Raw materials are carefully selected and sourced as locally as possible, from areas with robust legislation designed to protect those mining materials, and the environment.
Oxford Clay pottery is made from clay mined in South West England, high-fired with 100% renewable electricity. All Oxford Clay pottery is crafted using vegan-friendly tools and ingredients.
Creating pottery using principles from the circular economy
Oxford Clay pottery is designed to incorporate circular economy principles which take ‘waste’ materials already in the supply chain and create these into new products. All Oxford Clay pottery is glazed using a stoneware glaze made with waste wood ash recycled from heating homes.
Creating colour from recycled materials
Commercial metal oxides traditionally used to colour pottery are particularly environmentally damaging and energy-intensive produce.
At Oxford Clay, colour is created instead using post-consumer metal and glass already in the supply chain or discarded as ‘rubbish’. The colour green is created by recycling copper from broken electronics into the pigment Verdrigis, and blue is created from used glass bottles and broken glass found around Oxford City.
Oxford Clay founder, Katherine Tomlinson
Read the story of how Oxford Clay began.