Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

OOOH BLOODY MARVELOUS

In a world of T-shirts made of unnatural fibres and toxic chemicals to the environment is a collection right here at TONIC produced on opposing standards with mystical designs by our lady, Luella Bartley.

Having returned home to London after a design sabbatical of 6 years showing at New York Fashion Week, she takes on her rightfully revered place back home as, what American Vogue has termed, ‘a star….a poster child for London cool’. 

She has been hailed to emulate the styles of Biba and Mary Quant fashions, with her young, quirky style winning the hearts of Lily Allen, Kelly Osbourne, Kate Moss – only but modern Britain’s most fascinating and spirited individuals today. 

Grasping the romanticism of English country-sides, horses and war iconography, Luella has maintained traditional influences, even calling her first collection, ‘Daddy I Want a Pony.  Still she entwines the punk and rebellious elements attributed to other sub-cultural movements of rock n’ roll Britain by seamlessly fusing bold colour, plaid and tuxedo elements throughout her years of design.

In the land of rain, wellie boots and cucumber sandwiches, Luella injects heritage with contemporary emblems.  For TONIC, she has pioneered our first collaboration project by designing four T-shirts called
Stag, Sun, Scary Douglas, and Robin.

Buy them here at Tonic and contribute to a cause of your choice.

THE FUTURE IS IN MY BAG

New York's OPEN SPACE gallery asked 125 artists from around the world to customise tote bags, as an artistic pledge to show their concern for the thousands of plastic bags wasted every day - 90% of the proceeds will go to Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, an organization dedicated to education for the environment.  This project marks the first of their future annual benefits for the planet. View the full range here

IN THE VEIN OF BEING GREEN

Magazines are spurting out green issues in fast trend, but Vanity Fair is in it’s 3rd year running for its annual issue dedicated to all things Green, with Madonna gracing their cover.

Notably, the article on William McDonough, a man of architecture who instrumental to current sustainability and clean-technology movements is one of the most promising discussions.  His view is, ‘If we understand that design leads to the manifestation of human intention, and if what we make with our hands is to be sacred and honor the earth that gives us life.' McDonough said there needs to exist a day ‘when the things we make must not only rise from the ground but return to it, soil to soil, water to water, so everything that is received from the earth can be freely given back without causing harm to any living system.  This is ecology.  This is good design.  It is of this we must now speak.’

His stance is that products should be manufactured according to how they can be recycled, to feed the earth’s ‘biological metabolism’ as he calls it.  We should be creating products that can be converted back into the earth’s nutrients, calling for a new industrial revolution to begin.  As he calls it, ‘we need 400 kinds of French cheese, not French plastic’.

ALSO IN THE ISSUE:

Charles Clover’s discussion with influential chefs on how endangered fish are reaching some restaurant menus

Fish considered what-not-to-eat:

1.    Bluefin Tuna, Yellowfish Tuna, and Bigeye Tuna – listed by the International Union for Conservatoion of Nature (I.U.C.N) as critically endangered
2.    Chilean Sea Bass
3.    Black Grouper
4.    Beluga caviar
5.    Red Snapper
6.    Skate
7.    Maine Wolffish
8.    Peruvian seabass
9.    Georges Bank cod (cod from Alaska is OK)
10.    Pompano
11.    New Zealand orange roughy
12.    Baby swordfish (also known as ‘pups’)
13.    Monkfish
14.    Halibut
15.    Shellfish depending on whether they are farmed or wild

Their list of Environmental DVDs and Books

Alan Weisman's fastforward discussion on what the world will look like due to accelerated environmental damage - focusing on Las Vegas, Cairo and Nunavut, Canada

NEW YORK HEARTS TREES

Last week the sun was soaring high above the clouds in New York City, the week of Earth Day.  Our CEO, Pankaj, was in town for a series of interviews.  Here you can see him standing in front of the shop window of the NBC Experience Store in Rockafeller Center where GreenDimes had set up a kiosk for people to sign up to our service.  A portion of the store's proceeds will be donated to MillionTreesNYC, a program set up by Mayor Bloomberg with a plan to plant 1 million trees by 2017.

In fact, THIS IS THE MONTH! Besides MillionTressNYC starting a movement with set goals to increase tree planting in the city with the determined stance that New Yorkers are the active go-getters to make this happen, they have also called for people to start planting as much as they can this month.    An ode to Earth Day and the shift into springtime, they are calling on people to either let them know about streets which need attention or joining planting groups in local neighborhoods.

NBC Universal also hosted a Green is Universal initiative where up to 150 NBCU volunteers planted trees in East Harlem, New York City, an area with a low population of trees and children with a high asmtha rate.

Cast members from Lipstick Jungle, The Real Housewives of New York City, Saturday Night Live and Bette Midler, were also getting the spades and buckets out for the MillionTreesNYC project. 

In addition to  their partnerships with MillionTreesNYC, recycling bins were set up around the TODAY studio where people could drop off their unwanted electronics - cell phones, old laptops, cameras, Blackberries, etc.  This was a partnership of NBC Universal with Environmental Media Association, HP and Staples in a project called Green Screens, an act that also took place around 76 Staple branches throughout the NYC boroughs and Long Island but occurred prior to Earth Day Week.  The donated cellphones were transferred into an art installation by Kevin O'Callaghan and his students at the School of Visual Arts, on exhibition throughout the week.

 

LETS MAKE THAT PHONE AGAIN

Four out of 10 billion handsets sold worldwide last year were made by Nokia. In an attempt to respond to the impact of mobile technology to the environment, they have developed a ‘green’ phone using recycled materials.

The prototype, entitled ‘Re-made’ is flat touch-sensitive keypad and metal casing are produced from recycled cans with its electrical components also made from recycled materials.

"It really shows what can be done with materials," Chief Executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, told the assembled audience of mobile phone industry executives at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this February. "It is only a concept now - I cannot make a phone call - but it gives you an insight into how we think we can break new ground."

Despite no concrete plans to start production, it signals an entry of the brand into new eco-territory.

via The Guardian

Greenpeace asks ‘How Green is that iPhone’?

Green Mobile: eco-minded network, landline and broadband provider who raise money for green charities and educate on the impact of mobile phones to the environment

Vodafone to reduce its carbon emissions by 50% by 2020

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE - NOT JUST ON PAPER

Paper has a list of 64 Beautiful People that they want to tell the world about.  They do it every year and it ranges from individuals to collectives of folk who are influencing the worlds of music, film and fashion with their crafts. Now despite what you think of these popularity lists, two incredible inclusions need to be mentioned:

ECO GROUP
Eco-friendly record label Green Owl Records is featured.  Co-founded by Jill Fehrenbacher who first started Inhabitat.com, a blog about sustainability, and Ben Brewer, who is currently working on a compilation CD including Feist, Of Montreal, Bloc Party, Juliana Hatfield, and Muse.  All proceeds of sales of CDs will go towards Energy Action Coalition, an action to educate the youth on energy saving.  Read more here at Paper

THE DO-GOODERS
Scott Marrison is a man with connections – he  got the Mercer Hotel to sell expensive bottles of water at $20 a pop to raise money to dig wells in Africa.  David Belle helps to train Haitian filmmakers and got Wyclef Jean to play in the city of Jacmel in 2006.  Jess Atkin’s organisation MEAK aids Kenyans with the opportunity to get eye and heart surgeries.  Read more here at Paper

JUST MADE DIGITAL

Ready Made magazine has gone digital in honor of Earth Day this month - download it here.  There's a huge spread asking the question: can how you shop really influence saving the planet? 

WE GOT THE WORLD IN OUR HANDS

It's Earth Day today! What does this mean amidst the many allocated days sprinkled across our calendar?  There's a celebration for everything from the President, to Sandwiches to Friends.  Silly silly Hallmark.  They know how to cheat us into even more commercial dumb-down culture as we not only spend but embarrass ourselves into acknowledging that we need bright neon promotional signs to remind us of just about anything important.  We are just so very busy in our day to day living.

Today is not the day the earth came into existence, nor the day that magically we will all stand still and look at one another to collectively harness ourselves into the human race.  It is simply the day to realize a milestone in the year in which to start planning, changing, increasing the way we use this time on this earth, not esoterically but practically. It's about purpose! You can wince at the hippy in me, but why not get the peace signs out and save a cat from a tree.

Make money, buy clothes, go drinking, get stuck in traffic - beyond this measures of our successes and daily grinds which litter our stresses, is this grander backdrop to our being - the very ground in which is walk upon day in and day out!  It's about the elements - fire, water, air, earth.....the whole spectrum that says THERE IS SOMETHING BIGGER THAN US - THERE IS THIS PLANET AND ALL ITS WONDERS!

All across the world today incredible moments are taking place - shop windows have small signs telling you what day it is, trees are being planted, festivals are gathering people with food and soda pop and a host of individuals are commenting on how to make small differences.  They say if you visualize how you want your life to be then manifest it - it will surely happen.  The people over at The Sign could be a cult in some of your eyes, but their point is valid - we are make our beds - and if its a good bed, you could find yourselves lying on sheets of satin with truffles by your side.  Make it bad - and you'll probably get bed bites.

So instead of getting the guilt glad rags on because everyday we forget about Earth Day, politicians, members of society, professionals and everyday folk ear mark today to remember TO GET MOVING!

Philippines:  13,000 trees massacred on Earth Day

The divided debate on Earth Day

Wired magazines' pictures of our planet

Yann Arthus-Bertrand's legendary series of photographs: Earth from the Air

 

CLEAR WATERS RUN STILL

Vodka is a digestif and during Polish Christmas Dinners, required to drink one shot at a time in between 12 courses of sumptuous stodgy cuisine.  It also goes well with tonic and a slice of lime.  Now despite not wanting to promote indecent living and the continued abuse of alcohol, it arrives to our attention that a new vodka has been released onto the market that is 100% organic wheat, distilled with water from the Alps region, harvested locally in the Pemonte region of Italy and with a range of benefits to the environment.  This new high-end vodka, fellow drinkers at the bar, is Purus Vodka.

Self-proclaimed to be the 'Grain of Truth', the brand's website opens with a counter clocking the minutes and seconds to Earth Day - like it already.  For the first 100,000 adults who sign up to their website, a tree is planted in your name in California, Florida and Texas.  They have partnered with American Forests, one of the organizations we previously partnered with here at TONIC when we worked on the release of our TREE T-shirt.  Even better, every aspect of the product's creation and packaging has the environment in mind; the bottle is recyclable, the paper labels are made with tree-free paper, the cork is sustainable, all the inks used for lettering is soy-based and the adhesives water-based. 

Now the only thing to worry about are those hangovers.....

SHINE THE LIGHT ON MY BIG WORDS

Everyone has a laptop – we lug it to work, on the subway, sometimes shove it in the back of the car on a weekend away to check the email and russle up a few presentations in between playing with the kids. With the rush-rush time schedule we all are accustomed to, leaving behind your power chord is the most common mistake. It’s that irony - ‘I can lead a multi-million dollar company or teach a class of 35 but somehow, my mind goes blank when I need to remember the power chord!’

With days of glaring sun about to arrive, what if we could just lay the laptop, in its case, on the beach, in the park or on the deck of the house whilst you sip a quick margharita and wax lyrical on the week? Voltaic envisioned a solar panelled laptop case some time ago but first edition technology usually have glitches and there were complaints about not enough wattage being produced to actually power up any laptop.

Back in full force, the Generator bag is made from PET (recycled soda bottles) can fit and fully charge a 17’’ Powerbook. It’s tough, water-resistant and lightweight.