This is causing a real hoopla at Etsy, one of the coolest online shops we can find overseas. Lena, a potter, had the idea to create this truly sustainable t-shirt.
The “I’m Compostable” design was created in honor of several friends of hers who are turning 40. It made everybody laugh and talk “trash”. She did it in an attempt to inspire other people to think about the environmental benefits of composting.
Lena wanted to inspire people to think about the benefits of composting so she made a small print run of these truly biodegradable t-shirts. Instead of using plastisol inks—used in regular prints—the letters were printed with water based ink. The cotton is 100% organic cotton from North Caroline.
Use it until it is worn out. Then, cut the t-shirt to shreds and feed them to the worms, which will turn them into a nice fertilizer for your garden.
The women style t-shirts are available in small, medium and large sizes. The men style t-shirts come in medium, large and extra-large sizes. This cute invention is on sale at her store on Etsy and can be ordered from Brazil—by those who have an international credit card, of course.
Also, the sustainability doesn’t stop on the shirt. The product is wrapped in a biodegradable cellophane bag with twine and the boxes are reused shipping boxes or Lena’s neighbors’ shoe boxes. Shipping: $8.00 USD; t-shirt: $20.00 USD
Via the Ecotece Blog
Photo: publicity
John Novis, photographer for Greenpeace International, spent weeks living at the Yunnan province, China, amongst the local population and made a brilliant record of these farmers’ lifestyle, whose lives are intimately connected with rice farming. Their plantations, which spread over large areas and assure the livelihood of thousands of people, gave John the opportunity to see a rich traditional culture that, unfortunately, is under threat by the large corporations that want to seize control over the rice production.
Check out this slideshow, narrated by John, and its beautiful soundtrack to understand the details of this beautiful homage to farmers of China and the entire world.
Speaking of food, the New York Times published a very interesting piece this week about how the food industry leads consumers to eat things against their own will. Research by Dr. David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—the powerful American institution responsible for regulating drugs and food—and author of the book “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite,” shows that the food industry operates more or less like the tobacco industry.
According to Dr. Kessler, by combining fat, sugar and salt in different ways, food manufacturers were able to tap into our brain’s reward system, creating a feedback loop that stimulates our desire to eat and leaves us wanting more and more even when we’re full.
In his book, Dr. Kessler admits: “I wouldn’t have been as interested in finding out why we can’t resist food if I didn’t suffer with this myself. I gained and lost weight several times over. I have suits in every size.”
The food industry is also the theme of a documentary that has been generating lots of debate in the United States. Food Inc. questions many procedures adopted by food manufacturers, a little along the lines of what films such as Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation have done, focusing not only on health and nutritional issues but also on ethical, environmental and political aspects.
It’s the same old story: to eat well, one has to be well informed.
As the saying goes “A stitch in time saves nine.” So, people, get ready. It is not enough to take our own fabric bag when we go shopping at the drugstore or the supermarket. Thaís Horta, educator and coordinator of the A3P program in the city of Sao Paulo, said recently during a lecture that she refuses to drink coffee or water in plastic cups. The solution? She always carries a mug and a squeeze bottle in her purse.
If somebody offers her a drink in a plastic cup, Horta uses her super ceramic mug. The squeeze bottle, adopted by many people, is “used” to drink water. What does it have to do with the plastic container in the title? A-ha. When she goes to the bakery to buy cold meats, she takes her own plastic container! By doing this, she avoids using plastic and paper that would end up in the garbage.
Girls, she gave a suggestion for our shower. Rinsing off hair conditioner requires a lot of water—especially if you have long hair, like myself. So… Horta chooses leave-in hair products. She said that this gives movement to her hair—and she sure had shining hair.
What is A3P
The Public Administration Environmental Agenda (A3P) is a program that seeks to implement good practices in public institutions in order to preserve the environment. Their actions range from implementing the use of recycled paper to checking the building’s pipes. Horta told us that Edificio Martinelli, a historical building located in downtown Sao Paulo, used to spend, per day, an amount of water that could fill 10 olympic-size swimming pools. After the remodeling, the building is saving R$100,000 Brazilian reals in their water bill. Another example of the A3P work: an amount equivalent to 10% of the Brazilian GDP is spent on government purchases. The government program stimulates the purchase of “green” products—less harmful to the nature. To find out more about the program, click here.
Note: I’ve just spotted, from my bedroom window, a flock of migratory birds flying towards the coast. How cute!
“Bags are a drag. For us, for the city, for the planet and for the future.” This is the slogan for the national campaign launched in Sao Paulo by Carlos Minc, Minister of Environment, on Tuesday (June 23), with the support of Wal-Mart, a supermarket chain. This initiative seeks to raise people’s awareness to say no to plastic bags, whenever possible, and to adopt alternative ways of transporting their groceries and packing their waste.
“Today is a happy day and may everybody follow this good example. Let’s reduce the use of plastic bags, reuse them and say no to them whenever possible so that soon, just as it happened with the aluminum cans, the plastic industry will find itself closing the entire circuit, either by generating energy, another plastic or construction materials,” pointed out Minc, during the launch.
To reach the population, two 30-second videos were produced for the campaign and presented during the launch. One of them shows a relaxed and humorous speech by the campaign spokesperson, Jose Lima, founder of the AfroReggae group, in which he encourages citizens to refuse, reduce and reuse plastic bags. Print materials, such as ads, brochures, posters and stickers where also produced to promote the campaign. In addition, the campaign has a blog that provides information and tips on conscious consumption, as well as on alternative ways to replace plastic bags in our daily activities.
Every year, Brazil consumes 12 billion plastic bags and each Brazilian uses approximately 66 bags per month. The data provided by the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (Abras) and other data by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) shows that the negative effects of these “harmless” plastic bags are already reaching distant locations, considered true tourist and ecologic paradises. Also, 500 billion bags are out there, clogging rivers, lakes and sewers, polluting the ocean, killing fish, turtles and other animals.
Crass mistakes? They forgot to post the videos on YouTube and the blog is not working properly. It seems that now we have some heavy-weigh allies in our fight against plastic bags.
Via the Ministry of Environment website; tip by Lu Monte
Photo: Plastic Bags waiting for Recycling, by evelinshere, at Flickr under CC
During the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen, European leaders surprised the world by announcing a bold global agreement aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which also includes the protection of forests and oceans and heavy investments in renewable energy, such as solar and wind energy. You don’t believe? This was published by the International Herald Tribune, a version of the New York Times sold outside the US.
Ok, ok, I’m just kidding… this and other pieces of good environmental news are, unfortunately, part of the fake version of a newspaper that was distributed in Brussels by Greenpeace activists today, during a meeting attended by the main European leaders, held in the city. The idea (a partnership between the environmental organization and the crazy dudes from Yes Men) is to pressure those guys, who have been paying little attention to the ongoing climate crisis. They were happy to open their wallets to save banks and insurance companies, but don’t give any money to save the planet!
The idea of the fake newspaper is not new; in the end of last year they did the same thing with the NYT, announcing the end of the Iraq war and other “lies”. But that’s alright!
Check out people’s reaction as they received the newspaper filled with good news, on the streets of New York.
Also, check out other pranks by the Yes Men group—these guys are good!
If I still had a doubt regarding which operating system I wanted to use in my next laptop computer, it disappeared when I read this: Linux is not only cheaper and safer that Apple’s and Microsoft’s proprietary systems, but it’s also more ecologic!
The Australian ZDNet listed 10 items on which Linux beats its rivals in environmental matters. For example, because Linux is lighter, it doesn’t need a very powerful computer to work appropriately, which saves energy.
I know that many people are reluctant to use computers based on Linux, alleging that Linux is too complicated and that they are already used to “Ruindows” by M$. The first argument used to be true, but it isn’t anymore. Check out Ubuntu and tell me what you think. I worked for the government of the city of Sao Paulo during the implementation of the local digital inclusion project and saw people from the outskirts of the city using Linux very easily. I asked some of them if they found it much different and their answer was kind of obvious: of course not; after all, they were using a computer for the first time.
This leads us to the second issue, the habit of using this or that program. Well, you may be used to drive a car and start taking a bus for financial reasons and/or environmental awareness. You are not used to giving rides but start doing it more often. You may be used to brushing your teeth with a running faucet and then find yourself having to get used to not doing it. And so on so forth.
Changing our habits (especially the bad ones) is crucial to drive us to new levels of civilization, one where there is respect for the environment, for people and for the rules of life in society, even in this great capitalist market. Sharing, tolerating, reusing and recycling. Everything in life is a matter of choice. And our choices define our future.
The 5-feet tall “cleaning tractor” crosses the office and heads to the balcony, carrying a bucket, a broom, a mop, rags, a brush and the vacuum cleaner… Ops, the vacuum cleaner? I tiptoed to see what Val was doing and caught her—looking really mad—on top of the bird drinking fountain, attacking the air using the vacuum cleaner’s hose.
– Val?
– …
– Val! Vaaaaaal!!!
– Did you call me, Carol?
– Turn oooooff the vacuum cleaneeer, Vaaaaal!
– Oh, right!
– Val, what the hell are you doing with the vacuum cleaner, woman?
– Sucking up the bees, Carol.
– !
- Didn’t you tell me that hummingbirds die when they are stung by bees? I saw that poor thing’s agony, flying from here to there, unable to reach the drinking fountain because of the bees.
– Val, you weren’t trying to suck up the bees with the vacuum cleaner… Were you?
– Of course I was… I’ve been doing it since last week. Didn’t you notice that the bees have disappeared?
“Transformer” is a system created by designer Chun-wei Liao and allows you to use cardboard to make from pendants to little stools.
Objects manufactured with this system use a flat sheet of cardboard and several pyramids that can be attached to the main sheet to create an original form. The system was launched during this year’s Milan Design Week.
Source: iGreenSpot
This piece of news published by Setor Reciclagem called my attention. The battery industry hasn’t organized a collection system yet. What do you mean, Bial? I searched for more information on this and, as always, found some great material on How Stuff Works (and terrible links that took me nowhere). Straight from the source.
Every year, 1.2 billion batteries and 400 million cell phone batteries are sold in Brazil, says the data from the Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association (Abinee). This gigantic amount of batteries that goes to the market also has a limited lifetime and usually ends up in the regular garbage. Since 2000, all batteries produced in Brazil have very low or near zero levels of heavy and pollutant metals such as cadmium, mercury and zinc, as establishes directive number 257 issued in 1999 by the National Council of Environment (Conama). Because of this law, the heavy metals present in batteries and cell phone batteries offer a low risk of pollution, which could lead people to agree with the industry executives’ claims that their batteries can be disposed into the garbage.
The point is that the Brazilian reality doesn’t help. The disposal of ordinary batteries as regular garbage requires a good sanitary landfill management system, found only in 10% of the Brazilian landfills, according to estimates by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Renewable Resources (Ibama). Also, not every battery in the market meets the standard—there are “illegal batteries.”
Incipient in Brazil, the level of recycling or reuse of batteries is very low. Suzaquim is the only company that does it, recycling approximately 6 million batteries per year—less than 1% of what is sold. Manufacturers of cell phone batteries, for instance, collect and ship them to recyclers outside Brazil.
“We do have the appropriate technology to handle used batteries in the Brazil; what we don’t have is enough raw material [used batteries],” said Professor Marcelo Mansur, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (DEMET), Federal University of Minas Gerais (on the article reproduced by Setor Reciclagem). To sum up: by throwing our batteries into the regular garbage we are turning their recycling into something unfeasible. This is exactly what the industry is doing: hindering a process that could generate profits and eliminate risks to our health. These companies should do as TetraPak, who invented the Recycling Route just to help in the collection of their packages. Morons!
The leading battery brands—Duracell (click on disposal; watch out, the website is poorly organized), Rayovac and Panasonic—include this message in their labels: dispose of as regular garbage. Note: together, these brands account for over 50% of the battery market. Although it is not illegal to dispose of batteries as household waste when they are in compliance with the maximum levels of heavy metals—cadmium, zinc, lead, manganese and mercury—the fact remains that only 35% of the approximately 5,000 cities in Brazil have sanitary landfills. Most of the cities still use open landfills with poor environmental quality control.
Also, it is estimated that 40% of the batteries found in the market are smuggled into the country and do not meet the environmental safety standards. These batteries are usually manufactured in Asia, especially in China, and have high concentration of cadmium and lead, sometimes in levels 10 times above those established by the Conama directive number 257/1998. Meanwhile, their zinc and manganese levels—active elements in batteries—are lower than the minimum threshold established by said directive, which decreases the lifetime of the product and therefore increases the amount of disposed of products and also the level of pollution.
The website of the Ministry of Environment has a list of collection stations hidden somewhere there. I tried every kind of search and didn’t find it! I went to the main page, but didn’t find any useful information there.
One of the answers of the oracle: contact your local Secretariat of Environment. I went to the portal of the Government of the City of Sao Paulo, which is very good. One piece of news: Cantinho Ecológico protects the environment in the Sao Mateus area. Surely, there are some banks (Real, for example) and cell phone companies (unwillingly, by the way) that are doing their part. In a country where not even the street garbage bins manage to survive the population’s actions, what else can we expect?
Just wait because I’m going to approach this issue again.
In time: some Posts for Volunteer Waste Collection (PEV) do have a container for batteries and cell phone batteries. Remember to sort them out…
Photo: Old Batteries, Eva The Weaver, at Flickr under CC
I wrote a post for Blog do Planeta about the invading and exotic species found in the Atlantic Forest. I talked with Helena de Godoy Bergallo, a researcher at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). She pointed out some of the things that people do in the hopes to preserve the environment but that end up harming it. Things such as feeding stray dogs and letting pet cats walk across rooftops.
This conversation reminded me of the issue of urban trees. Since the Brazilian colonization, people have been planting trees from other regions of the country and the world in front of their houses and in their backyard. For example, the mango tree mentioned in the song—”when I step on dry leaves, fallen from a mango tree”—comes from Asia. However, years ago, it was chosen by our local government to decorate public streets. Find out more about the risks it poses on the post.
So, which trees can be used in urban areas? The endemic (native) species for the area in question, of course. But there’s a detail that is worth pointing out. My beloved Araucaria tree, for example, is native to the Atlantic Forest. However, it is no longer found in the Sao Paulo coast. So, it should not be planted on the seashore. Remember that the biome also has its particularities.
Yeah… urbanization and landscaping are a little bit complex. Before planting your little seed or seedling, contact your local Secretariat of Environment. Get their help to select the right species. They can—and should—be able to give you a list of endemic species. Also, be aware of the urban technical requirements that must be observed should you decide to plant a tree on a sidewalk. In the city of Sao Paulo, it needs to be at least 1.20 meter wide. The tree should not get in the way of this measurement. I know that in practice…
Well, I’m going to leave (below) some information related to trees in urban areas. Have fun:
- Their size must be appropriate for the space available;
- Preferably, their fruit should be small to avoid accidents;
- The tree top should be compatible with the space available to avoid obstructing traffic and building facades;
- On sidewalks, choose species with deep roots to avoid damaging the public pavement;
- Choose pest and disease resistant species as the use of pesticides and fungicides is not recommended;
- Be careful with power cables; with water, sewage and gas pipes, and with directional signs. Trees must not interfere or damage these public properties;
- Make sure the trees do not interfere with the buildings’ natural and artificial lighting;
- It’s best to avoid species with thorns along their trunks and branches;
- Fallen leaves can clog gutters and sewers; therefore, prefer planting trees with small leaves.
Note: The government of the city of Sao Paulo has started a photography contest called “Árvores da Cidade de São Paulo.” See here: Anyone with a beautiful, poetic, conceptual photo or else, of a tree planted in this chaotic metropolis can participate. I’m going to enter my photos—I took the one below from my window. Kisses. Have a nice Friday.
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