Archive for April, 2008
April 28th, 2008
Art from Recycled Goods = Divine Decor
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We have recently come across the outstanding artists who are using found and recycled objects to create their masterpieces. Their work is gorgeous, intriguing and sustainable– what could be better?
The first we want to highlight is the “mosaic fusion” of artist S A Schimmel Gold. She collects junk mail and incorporates it into her stunning portraiture. Some are pure pop, some are moody and moving. I saw them “in person” at the AltBuild Expo last week and was floored. The artist says of herself and her work, “I am a rabid recycler - I am compelled to upcycle unusual resources to create my art and give others’ images and words a new life in my work. Look closely for menu items, cruise itineraries, gallery openings… stand back to view the sum of the parts - a textural representation of beauty.” Please review the Schimmel Art collection here.
The second artist we love is Tammy Roy, who is the founder of OneEighty, an eco-art studio. Tammy takes used washers, rebar and other found metal objects and welds them into compelling pieces. She makes lamps, bowls, wall pieces– and the amazing fireplace screen shown here. Tammy and her mom love to go dumpster-diving together– she says, ”Unlike most mothers and daughters, you won’t see us in the malls, but instead pulling scraps of steel from salvage yards!” See the entire OneEighty collection here.
If you have not seen the plastic bag mandala art of Virginia Fleck, you have a real treat in store. Fleck collects brightly colored plastic bags and turns them into spiritual post-consumer gems. She is grounded in both the traditions of American quilting and the mandala art of Tibet. Some of the pieces are fanciful (including images of Scooby Doo’s face) and some are more abstract and modernist. Fleck’s work has met with great critical acclaim, and once you peruse her collection, you will have no question as to why.
Kwytza Kraft was the original idea of founder Bryan Parks, an American who lived in China for several years. He became disturbed by the refuse created by single-use chopsticks, and decided he needed to do something about it. Now he collects chopsticks, sanitizes them, and creates stunning lamps, bowls, and other objects. He even makes purses and necklaces out of chopsticks. Please take a look at the Kwytza Kraft collection.
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April 25th, 2008
Make This One Earth Mother’s Day
Women are believed by some to be closely linked to nature as mothers, nurturers and food producers. We’ve certainly seen several mothers become noted environmentalists from Frances Moore Lappe to Wangari Matthai and Laurie David – even Erin Brockovich. Whether your mother is an active environmentalist or just a well deserving mom, we have several great ways for you to honor her this coming Mother’s Day.
Tired of the same old stuffy brunch? Plan a hike or nature walk. I took three generations of women in my family up Mt. Tamalpais a few years ago and we all agreed that it was one of our best Mother’s Day celebrations. If you had quality time in mind, but were looking for something that requires a little less physical fitness, Spa Index offers a list of eco-friendly and socially responsible spas. Many offer overnight accommodations or you can enjoy a simple afternoon of pampering.
This year, there is no need to show-up on Mother’s Day empty handed, with so many great green gifts to choose from. Here is a small selection from Low Impact Living.
Give your mom a gift from Nomine Candles’ Botanical Jar Collection. Each hand poured candle is infused with a heavenly blend of only the purest essential oils (no synthetic fragrances are used). Natural soybean wax and lead-free cotton wicks ensure a cleaner burn, while luxurious packaging (including a handy matchbook) offers the ultimate eco-friendly gift.
You can also pair votive candles with the Recycled Votive Centerpiece by OneEighty Design. The source of the glass votive holders is actually the bottom of a wine bottle. They have teamed up with the brilliant folks at Green Glass to incorporate their recycled glassware, which is derived from discarded wine bottles. The willow green glass makes a striking statement against the raw metal washers.
If you had something more practical in mind, a set of our favorite reusable shopping bags from Olive Smart, may be just the thing for your green mom. Everyone needs more than one reusable bag when they go to the store, but who wants to carry six bulky totes? The Olive Smart Sack is small enough to fit in the cup holder of your car - never to be forgotten. In the Sack, are 6 colorful reusable bags each holding 20% more than a plastic bag.
A longtime Low Impact Living favorite, Eco-Me makes a fun body kit with everything Mom needs to start her own natural apothecary at home. Their 100% natural Eco-Me Body Kit contains supplies to make chemical free body scrub, body oil, body tonic and body powder (below right). She will love the sweet fragrance Eco-Me Body Blend, 100% natural essential oil with bergamont, lavender and lime.
Another wonderful way to spoil your mom is with a Miessence Mother’s Day Gift Pack. All Miessence products are made with natural, non-toxic ingredients. Your mom will love the Rose Monsoon hydrating mist, the nourishing hand cream, and the Jaffa Lip Balm made with cocoa butter, safflower and avocado oils. And it all comes in a pretty organza reusable gift sack!
Monogrammed stationery is one gift that will not go to waste. Cast Paper Art makes customized note cards on 100% recycled cotton fiber using a centuries-old technique. Each card contains a blank writing insert and a matching envelope (pictured below). Select your mom’s favorite color and she will not forget to thank you this Mother’s Day.
A handwoven bamboo scarf makes a classic Mother’s Day gift sustainbale. Kristin Kelly’s Etsy Shop has a small selection of beautifully textured, handmade bamboo scarves that are soft to the touch and drape beautifully (below). Bamboo is a rapidly renewable, biodegradable, pesticide-free material that is naturally antibacterial, so garments stay odor free for longer. Your mom will enjoy trying-out the great new green material.
If you have a long distance mom, we suggest a box of seasonal organic fruit from Mode Organic. You can send a one-time selection of top-quality organic fruits, vegetables or cheese or give 3 to 12 months of seasonal bounty. We love Mode Organics commitment to sourcing sustainable, artisan produce and their stylish recycled packaging.
Of course, small things are always easy to send. You can find great green jewelry makers here or just send an eco-friendly greeting card from SendGreenCards.com. All their cards are made with elephant dung paper that helps reduce pollution, save trees and prevent animal abuse. Their beautiful Classic by Design card can be custom worded, just for your mom.
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April 24th, 2008
Five Clever Tips to Lower Your Impact
Here are five easy ways you may not have thought of for living a more low impact life. They’re simple to do and will save water and energy, and lessen your contribution to global warming.
1. Put a bucket in your shower to catch the water as the water warms up. If you don’t have a tankless water heater or you don’t want to go to the expense of a re-circulating water pump, then just put a bucket in the shower and save the otherwise wasted water. You can use that water for your plants, for your animals, for dishes… it’s easy!
2. Don’t use bags for your fruits and veggies at the grocery store. A lot of people take reusable shopping bags to the store now (and thank you for doing so!), but they still get the little plastic bags for their fruits and vegetables. Did you know you can just throw those in your basket and then weigh them at the counter in separate piles? No need for those little baggies.
3. Eat by candlelight one night each week. It’s romantic, it’s fun, and you just saved thousands of watts of electricity each year. You might even go so far as to forego TV one night a week. Talking or reading– imagine the carbon-free possibilities!
4. Turn your water heater down– but wait there’s more! A lot of people have heard that they should turn down the temperature on their water heater….but have you turned it down to the point that you don’t have to mix in cold water when you shower? Think about it– if you have to mix in cold water, you’re wasting the heat that was used to make your hot water its scalding temperature. So turn it down all the way until it’s comfortable to use the hot water by itself. (And then get an aerating showerhead to cut your use of water even more.)
5. Use the microwave instead of the oven. Did you know that your microwave is much more energy efficient than your oven? And admit it– you were looking for an excuse to use the microwave anyway.
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April 23rd, 2008
Green Kids Alert: Eco-friendly Child Care and Toxic Baby Bottles
Eco-friendly Child Care
Our friends at Plenty Magazine have recently written about the excellent trend of eco-friendly day-care centers popping up around the country. It seems the Eco-Healthy Childcare Program that started in Oregon is now moving into California– and they play to go national over the next few years. Hurray to that! They also have approved some daycare facilities in other states like Colorado and Michigan– click here to see all the sites.
What is eco-friendly child care, you may well ask? Childcare facilities can qualify as “Eco-Healthy” by completing a checklist that highlights 25 simple steps that ensure a safe place for children. Eco-Healthy childcares commit to reducing a child’s exposure to toxics and other environmental health hazards. Facilities must meet a list of criteria addressing air quality issues and exposure to pesticides, lead, and other toxins. To read more on these standards, click here.
Learn about the Dangers of Some Baby Bottles
You may have heard in the news recently that there is quite a bit of concern out there that the plastics in baby bottles may be leeching a chemical that is linked to developmental defects, cancer and infertility. The chemical is called bisphenol A, or BPA, is used to make hard polycarbonate plastic, and can be found in many items, including hard plastic bottles and in a lining of tin or aluminum cans.
Please educate yourself on this topic and decide what is right for you. You can learn more about a recent report cited on CBS News here — the report is by the Work Group for Safe Markets. Or learn more on this topic from WebMD.
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April 23rd, 2008
The Straight Poop: TerraCycle Plant Foods
I love to tinker in my garden, and I’m an especially big fan of this company TerraCycle and their gardening products. The reason for the title of this blog is that TerraCycle fertilizers are made from worm poop! The company also has some very interesting recycled packaging. I had the good fortune to interview TerraCycle’s CEO, Tom Szaky, about chemical-free gardening and the TerraCycle story.
Q: What’s so wrong with using normal fertilizers? How much of it stays in the food we eat…and how dangerous are those chemicals?
A: There is nothing wrong with using “normal” chemical fertilizers. In fact, the plant roots will absorb the nutrients in the exact same chemical form whether the nutrients come from chemicals or the breakdown of complex organic molecules. The food we eat is made up of the nutrients the roots take in and the conversion of CO2 to complex carbohydrates through photosynthesis. So in that sense, whatever fertilizers a plant is provided with, some of them will always end up in the food we eat. Because the plant manufactures the food we eat from the nutrients available to it, the type of fertilizer used has no inherent risks as far as the plant produce.
However, if the fertilizer contains contaminants such as heavy metals, some plants concentrate these contaminants in various plant organs which could be dangerous. This contamination is not limited to chemical fertilizers but can also occur in improperly produced or monitored organic fertilizers. The chemical fertilizers are “dangerous” only in that they are concentrated forms of plant nutrients their dissolution usually results in drastic pH conditions and shifts.
Thus, high concentrations when applied to plants whether solid or liquid result in plant “burn” because the drastic pH conditions harms or kills the plant cells. This same thing can happen with highly concentrated liquid fertilizers because all the nutrients are in a soluble form. The big advantages to properly prepared organic fertilizers are primarily two-fold: 1) the nutrients exist in complex molecular form and are only released as they are broken down by the soil microorganisms (providing a long-term steady nutrient supply), 2) properly prepared organic fertilizers start out as whole plants and other organic matter; therefore, they contain all the nutrients that a plant needs. Non-sterilized organic fertilizers also contain beneficial microorganisms that aid the plant in efficient uptake of available nutrients.
Q. How do I know if a fertilizer is safe? If it says “organic” am I good to go as a consumer?
A: All commercially available fertilizers must go through a registration process with each state having its own set of standards. This should ensure that all commercially available fertilizers are safe to use according to their labeling — chemical or organic. If a fertilizer is labeled as “organic” all that means is that the manufacturing process including the materials used to make the fertilizer fall under the legal definitions as to what can be used to manufacture an “organic” fertilizer. These legal hurdles are there to protect the consumer and ensure the relative safety and effectiveness of the organic fertilizers. With that said, the more complex organic molecules an organic fertilizer has the better it should be for the overall safety of use and health of the plant.
Q. What makes TerraCycle special? How is it made? Why is it safe?
A. TerraCycle is the world’s only product that is made from AND packaged in waste! The production of TerraCycle Plant Foods is actually consuming more waste then it produces. This is why our products have received the Zerofootprint Seal of Approval signifying that they have virtually no negative effect on the environment. TerraCycle is made by feeding thousands of tons of organic waste (food waste, paper waste and garden clippings) to millions of worms! The process of the worms composting uses no electricity and actually consumes carbon for the atmosphere, not to mention the thousands of tons of physical waste that are removed from landfills! Once the worm poop has been collected we liquefy the solid to make our fertilizers. The liquefaction process is also very energy efficient the mixture is mixed for 24 hours using a small air pump. Once liquefied the fertilizer are bottled into used soda bottles.
Q. How does TerraCycle as a company execute on a commitment to environmental sustainability?
A. More then just making eco-friendly products, TerraCycle maintains and operates a eco-friendly factory and office. 100% of our plastics are recycled, 100% of our paper is shredded and composted. The coolest aspect in my opinion is that we use office equipment that is also recycled. We buy our desks, chairs, room dividers, even our telephones, monitors and PCs from universities and larger corporations that are throwing them away. E-waste is a huge concern and we are proud to be doing our part to help combat it locally. In addition we of course do the simple things like using CFLs, always turning off the lights, using very little heat and AC except when direly necessary.
Q. What products are best for spring gardening? Any regional differences?
This is an all encompassing question which cannot be universally given an all encompassing answer. Spring gardening can refer to vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, grasses, foliage plants - field grown or container grown, etc. Each type of plant has it’s own special needs some of which is dependent upon what the gardener wants back from it. For instance, a fertilizer that is great for grasses or foliar houseplants (high in nitrogen) would also produce gorgeous tomato plants with dark green beautiful foliage - but no tomatoes. Thus the plant would be happy but not the gardener.
Generally speaking, plants that are grown primarily for their foliage (e.g. foliage houseplants, grasses, herbs, leafy vegetables) do better if provided with a fertilizer that has a high nitrogen to phosphorous, potassium ratio. Accordingly, most field grown plants do not require as much phosphorous as container grown plants because phosphorous is usually available to field grown plants but may be lacking in the potting mix used for container plants. Plants grown for their fruit (e.g. tomatoes, peppers, squash, apples, eggplants) perform better if provided with a fertilizer that has a balanced nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium ratio (with the aforementioned container vs. field caveat). These generalities are in most cases unaffected by regional location.
However, the ideal way to garden is to take a soil sample to your local county extension office for testing. The information you provide which includes garden location and planned usage (what will be grown) allows the extension service to provide you with a complete analysis and recommendations for fertilizers or other soil amendments that would give you the best results. A good thing about the extension service recommendations is that they do not make specific fertilizer type recommendations but only content; therefore, you are free to choose whatever fertilizer will meet the recommendations.
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