Globalization is for everybody!
March 1, 2010 | by Maxwell | Comment
The Western lifestyle is characterized by aggressive and expanding rates of consumption. We already knew that. What many don’t know is that much of what we consume comes from places far away. In these places, people and their environments have been, and continue to be, destroyed so that items like Bananas (Ecuador), Coffee (Peru), Sugar (Brazil), Cotton (India), and Cocoa (Ghana) can be shipped to “wealthy” countries for consumption year-round.
The Fairtrade Foundation, a London based non-profit that licenses FAIRTRADE products in the UK, has designed a clever campaign to challenge people’s consumption habits. Buying FAIRTRADE products for two weeks sounds like a step in the right direction. Now if only we could design a way to float the containers here using only the ocean currents. I’ve never heard of FAIRTRADE oil, have you? Better reason yet to support local commerce.
EAT DIRT
January 18, 2010 | by Maxwell | Comment
The “News” has been drenching us with coverage of the Earthquake in Haiti. Before the earthquake, there was little reporting on the dismantling of Haiti’s economy. However, CNN deserves accolades for highlighting SOIL, a non-profit organization who’s goal is to broaden the community of people concerned about development and social justice in Haiti by installing composting toilets.
Right now, donating money is popular. The founders of SOIL were motivated to make a difference long before it was as easy as sending a text message to Wyclef.
Read their first-person account here as they react to the disaster. SOIL has decided to devote 100% of all donations that come in the next month to disaster relief. Donate here
Not Just Old Clothes
January 13, 2010 | by Leah | Comment
By the end of the Second World War, the mass-production of clothing had been honed into almost the same machine it is today. Over the next 20 years, fashions in stores became more and more alike and people began turning to thrift stores and yard sales to find what they really wanted. The first vintage clothing stores opened in the 1970s. From then on, used clothing has become completely commodified, blurring the line between a garment that is “authentic vintage” and one that is just plain used.
Today’s vintage market perfectly juxtaposes old clothing with modern commercialism. That vintage sweater from Screaming Mimi’s or Nasty Gal wasn’t always cleaned and styled and packaged up so nicely for you. It didn’t carry a $100 price tag either. No; after its first life in the 80s or 90s, it was pulled, crumpled and damp, from a bail of clothing in a rag house, worth only pennies.
A rag house is a used clothing retailer: unsold thrift stock is compacted into bails and shipped into their warehouse. They can receive bails of apparel, shoes, belts, bags, fabric remnants, etc.
The warehouse of EMR, or Environmental Material Recovery, in Los Angeles Read more
Refilling Ink Cartrdiges at Costco
January 12, 2010 | by YG | Comment
For $8-10 bucks you can refill your ink cartridges at Costco. At OfficeMax, my ink cartridges cost $15 & $35 (BW and Color).If you want to be more environmentally friendly and are ‘anti-buying-shit’ this is a neato option for you.
Drop off your ink cartridge (HP, Lexmark, DELL) and it takes about an hour, if they’re busy. You can also drop it off, just like you would a roll of film, and pick it up another day. In the meantime, you can browse around the store and enjoy a ’samplefull lunch’
via:(whygeneration.me)
Don’t play with fire.
December 26, 2009 | by Contribution | Comment
Don’t know what to do with those empty lighters laying around your place except to regretfully throw them into the trash? Take them apart and you’ve got classy paper clips for your notes. Utilize the bottom part of the lighters for colorful stands for board game pieces. Don’t play with fire. Play with sustainability. via (embrace)
Pure Water Made Portable
December 7, 2009 | by Keegan | Comment
Now, we all know that buying new shit isn’t the answer to the world’s problems. Regardless, TMY is proud to present you with the opportunity to have clean water on the go and support a worthwhile set of organizations at UCSD. We’re peddling these radical water bottles with built-in filters that are suitable not only for everyday use with tap water, but camping, emergencies, and apocalypse preparedness as well! Dip it in a river or lake, snap the top back on and enjoy. Check the specs here.
The student organization responsible for this fundraiser, Aquaholics Anonymous, states that “All proceeds go towards developing a low-water irrigation system for the Urban Farm, Compost Site, Neighborhood Garden, and Native Plant Garden at UC San Diego.”
As a member of the Sustainable Food Project at UCSD, the push for an Urban Farm on campus is a project I’m currently working on. In the wacky world of student politics, I’ve learned that a little bit of dough has to stretch a long way, and that every opportunity to fund a sensible project is valuable. Our goal is to create a rich learning environment at the school where students have the opportunity to learn biointensive organic farming methods, and reconnect with the food cycle.
If purchasing one of these bottles and supporting a noble cause interests you, please contact me via email. We are selling these BPA-free bottles for $20 each (They’re up to $25 plus shipping online!) and have a life meant to last over 300 refillings. Max and myself will be offering free bicycle delivery of the bottles within San Diego City (Anywhere that falls South of the 8, North of the 94, and West of the 125). If you live elsewhere, delivery can be easily arranged.
keeganoneal@gmail.com
Tags: food > fundraiser > students > UCSD > water
Harriet the Spy Made Me Do It
December 5, 2009 | by Leah | 1 Comment
I grew up in a very conservative area of Southern California, rife with five-bedroom track homes and their three-car garages, sod lawns, and complex irrigation systems. I’m from the old part of town where we don’t have swimming pools, and growing up with a dirt backyard and a mother who paints things bright colors and hangs other things from trees always made me feel different. The bad kind of different. I really wished my parents drove an SUV, voted Republican, and ate bacon.
In 1996 Harriet the Spy came out. Our heroine, ten-year-old Harriet, is ridiculed by her rich classmates, but it’s no matter– she gets to hang out in a magical garden of junkyard art where soda bottles hang from trees! From then on I’ve always pretended that I’m Harriet.
Now that I’m older and don’t live in California anymore, I can really see layers of importance in what used to embarrass me as a child. Once, years ago I flew into the small airport in Carlsbad, CA and it was really scary what I saw while landing– there’s the ocean, then the neighborhood I lived in followed by a maze of developed homes, and beyond that, yellow, leveled-out land dotted with bulldozers. Not only is this horrible for the environment, they’re building more mazes of uniformity as far east as people are willing to live. There are so many ways to change your landscape for the better, all while making you look really ‘hip’ and ‘progressive.’ ;)
My California home uses Xeriscaping, or landscaping with native plants that conserve water, require less maintenance, and are all-around better for the environment. There is an array of trees (orange, lemon, plum, kumquat, and avocado) that over the years have grown to be quite fruitful. Also, weird outdoor art installations to brighten up the dirt lot. Here are some visuals.
Plum tree and Tibeten prayer flags, taken with a Holga. So many alternative things going on here. I pretty much live off of the plums during the summer, there are hundreds of them.
Jade! I drew this in the backyard. Jade is a succulent, it requires little water, and it will look really cool decorating your room, especially if you plant it in a recycled soup can (but don’t put that sticker on it, that’s kind of lame).
Loquat tree (not to be confused with kumquat) with paint and bottles and things you can’t really see and more Tibetan prayer flags coming off of it.
That’s all for now
xx
Leah