Melanie Dizon was inspired to create eco-friendly fashion brand Eairth, a combination of ‘earth’ and ‘air’, during a road trip through her native Philippines. Her own line is a mix of jeans, cotton jersey tops, dresses and bags which she customises through embroidery, cutting and slashing, to ensure each piece is unique.
Whilst learning to surf in the Philippines, Melanie ran out of clothes and was forced to work with local t-shirts. "They're more organic chic than resort wear," she has said. "You can wear them anywhere depending on how you put them together with other pieces. No two pieces are exactly identical." With colorways of earthly tones in muted khakis, greys and blues, she uses organics sources such as indigenous barks, sedds and plants which are abundant to her local homeland.
After dropping out of Parsons with an F to her name she still managed to go on to work for established names such as Todd Oldham, Theory and BCBG.
Seems like Melanie didn't stray to far to find her own success.
Climate Counts is a non-profit organisation, funded by organics yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm and launched in collaboration with Clean Air-Cool Planet. With a mission to get consumers considering how businesses are affecting the everyday, they recently released their rankings of companies who have reduced emissions and attempt to attack climate change over the past year.
Nike scored 82/100. Other top scorers: Google, Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch and Levi Strauss.
Five companies scored one or zero points: Jones Apparel Group, Burger King, Darden Restaurants (owns Red Lobster and Olive Garden), Yum! Brands (parent to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC) and Wendys.
Cimate Counts is offering a wallet size version of the guide for free for all consumers who want to be reminding on a daily basis which of the current businesses out there are jeopardising the state of the environment. Checking on a company by text is also an available service: text ‘cc (company name)’ to 30644 and you an receive the score for that company as long as they were considered in Climate Counts’ 2008 Scorecard.
“Business is being pushed by consumers to do its part to solve the climate crisis,” says Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm’s CEO and chair of Climate Counts. “The Scorecard allows consumers to make good climate decisions in their everyday purchases, and it’s having an impact.”
Three artists make use of the discarded of the everyday, to make art.
Ptolemy Elrington Raising dead hub caps from the dead and re-incarnating them into everything from griant dragon flies, fish, dogs and crocodiles is the art that Ptolemy makes.
Clare Graham From scrabble pieces, to boxes, to yardsticks to bottletops, Clare utilises common everyday pieces into playful re-inventions of stylish interior design.
Zhang Wang Zhan Wang is one of China’s most celebrated artists – his ‘scholar’s rock’s’ sculptures creates a replica of China’s topographical models of urban landscapes by using mirrored utensils, steel pots and pans.
Gordon Ramsey is known for his fiery tongue but as long as he’s not firing yet another waiter in his kitchen, its absolutely fine. In a recent BBC interview he waxes lyrical on the need for every British restaurant to respond to the seasons and serve on the fruits and vegetables available at that time.
"Fruit and veg should be seasonal," he said. "Chefs should be fined if they haven't got ingredients in season on their menu.
"I don't want to see asparagus on in the middle of December. I don't want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown."
Ramsey claims that chefs have a social responsibility to lead the nation in a movement towards healthy eating where substance and quality prevail over food fads.
On the other side of the debate, Oxfam’s head of research, Duncan Green said he was sure ‘"the million farmers in east Africa who rely on exporting their goods to scrape a living would see Gordon Ramsay's assertions as a recipe for disaster". Read more here
What on earth are food miles? They are the distance that your food travels from the grower to your plate, including travel to and from processor and retailer.
Why should I want to reduce them? Because transporting your food long distances involves lorries and aeroplanes. And lorries and aeroplanes use lots of fuel and emit tons of CO2 emissions, contributing to global warming. But that’s just the starting point. Other reasons why we should be reducing food miles wherever possible include wanting to eat fresher food, in season; supporting local and regional producers and the economy; and preventing 3rd world countries from cutting down forests and losing their own food, because big companies see food as a commodity, rather as a way to feed the people of that country.
How to reduce food miles:
1. When shopping in supermarkets, check the labels. Buy food that comes from the country you live in. Failing that, look at the options and buy the product that comes from the nearest source, i.e. choose Mexican rather than South African apricots. Carry a small world map in your handbag or pocket for these occasions.
2. Eat what’s in season. It won’t have travelled as far as out-of-season fruit and vegetables.
3. Visit your local Farmers’ Market. Most towns have one, and they are a great source of truly local produce, not to mention a fun outing.
4. Find your local farm shops, producers and pick-your-own farms.
5. Get a veg box delivered to your door.
6. Grow your own. Get an allotment, or start a veggie patch in your back garden. If you have leftover seeds, give them away as gifts to local neighbours.
7. Support your local greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger, and ask them to stock more local produce.
8. Visit your local Country Market for really local produce.
9. Some rare breeds farm parks and city farms offer their local, non-intensively reared meat for sale. If you have one near you, ask them.
10. Walk or take the bus to your local shops. This way you won’t add to the food miles already accrued.
Developing nations still make their billboard signs out of heavy material. When the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil banned billboards, there were reams of material left as waste. TOUCH and StraaT joined forces with a group of artisans lead by Dona Jaci in the outskirts of Sao Paulo to design and produce tote bags using the surplus material.
Starting today in New York is TOUCH NYC, a collaborative 3 day showcase of new designers who focus on handmade sustainable products which benefit the environment. Read more here
China still stands as the land of bicycles, having produced up to 78 million of them in 2003, one third of the world’s total, whilst in 2002 every 100 household had up to 143 bikes. In the rise of China’s surge of economic development and cultural consumption, the car has entered the roads as a signal to the newly modernised people. It joins the new industrial shift of the country from one of the leaders in manufacturing, consumerism, business development and most unfortunately – as a key driver of smog and pollution in the environment. Watch The Guardian's video article on the changing face of the streets
1888 – less than a dozen golfers in the US 1975 – 14 million Americans played on 11,000 golf courses across the country 1984 – the US used more synthetic chemical fertilizer than India applied to their food crops 1964 – estimated the amount Americans invested in the American law was almost the same as in foreign military assistance 1989 – more than 500 million people made a living from garden lawn maintence and turf grass was a $25 billion industry
In fact, last year Donald Trump requested to build a new $2bn resort in
Scotland along unspoilt coastline on Menie Estate, 15 miles north of
Aberdeen, with a pair of 18-hole courses, a luxurious 450-bedroom
hotel, 950 vacation homes, 36 golf villas and 500 upscale homes.
Cronies in the oil and hotelier industries, as well as business leaders,
feverishly supported his case, highlighting it as a driving force for
future prosperity in the rural north-east of Scotland after oil runs
out. Proud of his Scottish roots, Trump was convinced his endeavours
would do much to complete environmental prosperity primarly because of the scale of his investment, but local fishermen such as Michael Forbes, an example of how village life is threatened as a result of macro economic
development was against Trump's ambush on natural territory.
Seven species of endangered birds listed on the conservation Red List live here – environmentalists, including The Scottish Wildlife Trust, argue that if the golf course had been built, 125-mile sandy beach, among the Top 5 sand dunes in the UK, would have been destroyed. Another major concern was the excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers to maintain the stretches of golf land. To relief, Trump's request was rejected and the 'Go away Trump' sign has been taken down.
Back on garden grass, award-winning directors Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg’s documentary Gimme Green goes on a journey across Washington, New York Maryland, Arizona, California and Florida to uncover a comical perspective on the gravity the average American places on the lawn. Watch the trailer here
It appears the American dream has stifled our reasonings to not only
involve getting bigger fridges and flat screen TVs, but an increased
application of the worse kind - 'keeping up with the Jones'. It's the
showbusiness game of maintaining one's image to the neighbourhood and
ultimately society that the household is doing well, the breadwinner
can afford the pesticide payments and beautiful housewives in expensive
shoes can walk across the lawn. Trump thought he was helping his Scottish neighbours by providing hundreds of jobs, but it was not such a selfless act, no?
The game of Marketing & PR started a long time ago - in the home.
Exchanging ‘stuff’ is one of the most traditional engagements that man has involved himself with; the English traded spices and tea with the Indians, the Kula tribe of the Trobriand Islands gave shell necklaces to admired and respected folk in their tribes, young American boys abandoned tired baseball cards for cooler players and in some households – even wives! We get bored of what we have, choose something with more meaning, require more value or simply want to replace a possession because it is no longer needed.
Ebay caught onto this basic instinct but produced a marketplace where these ideas translated into the application of each seller to name their price and make money – afterall, this is the modern age and everything seems to have a price. Yet access was given to an individual to decide how much value they placed on an item, rendering a primary example of how the digital arena is empowering individuals to be the purveyors of their own consumption exchange.
Whatsmineisyours began as a reaction to the disposable fashion world existing today where consumers are continuously giving up items they have short relationships with. Kick-started by fashionista, Judy Berger, her site still offers the buy-and-sell function, but goes one step further - you uncover clothes and furniture at a similar value and rather than dump it, swap it. Donating a Marc Jacobs handbag to a woman in India is ridiculous and you’re only going to go out to spend more - this way you can fulfill the greedy shopper in you but recycle the goods.
Takes the idea of fair trade into another dynamic, don't you think?
The crusades of celebrities to stay on trend was mocked at its most ridiculous when we saw the shift of Paris Hilton clutching the prettiness of a Fiji plastic bottle of water, and later boycotting any establishments who served the stuff, because well, Britney, Linsdey and the rest of the gang were trying it on for size. In America, tap water is given out free at every diner, cafe and restaurant. In Britain, on asking, you are snubbed, much the way a cat looks at a dog.
This wave is hitting restaurant owners like Richard O’Rourke at Gastor’s food hall in England who has said he has not sold a single plastic bottle since opening over 6 months ago. They invested in a £5000 ($10,000) system to filter tap water into glass bottles producing fresh and preservative free water. Having saved up to 17, 686 half litre plastic bottles, a ton and a half of carbon emissions from transportation and 1,474 packaging containers, bottles are served in glass bottles featuring the Gastor logo and been received extremely well by the public.
Cindy Crawford has just involved herself in a collaboration with PUR Water Filtration Systems for a similar endeavour by designing a reusable water bottle for the company which could allow us to eliminate up to 3,200 plastic water bottles each year.
"Environmental issues are on the top of everyone's mind, including my own," says Cindy. "As a mom, I'm particularly concerned because I want my kids to grow up in a healthier environment. I filter my tap water with PUR. It's a really simple yet impactful way to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic my family uses while also ensuring that we always have access to clean, great-tasting drinking water."
According to Fast Company, more than up to 38 billion plastic water bottles are discarded every year. Cindy’s efforts with PUR to design the limited-edition water bottles which sport the phrase ‘Thirsty for Change’ is a clear reaction against such numbers
All proceeds for the campaign will go to Procter & Gamble’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program which helps to reduce water related disease in many developing countries.
In the worlds of corporate corruption where suited men hide under cherry wood desks whilst shredding evidence of their thievery and greed, there lies a large gap in the market for selling on said shredded paper. Mulch and shredded junk mail have similar properties – they are both made up of bits of trees.
Therefore in gazillions of the offices which clutter our business centers, there exist infinite opportunities to not just recycle reams of used paper, but to shred them and turn them into compost for gardens. Most ink is soy based for economic reasons, resting no risk for toxic poisonings when planting edible seeds in the compost - that being said, better to test this new way of creating compost for plants and flowers only. Glossy magazines are entirely off the option list as they are not only unshreddable but can contain traces of contaminated inks.
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