Slate T-shirt

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:32:00 +0000

George Carlin once observed that a house is where you keep all your stuff, until you have too much stuff, and then you get a bigger house so that you have enough space for your stuff. I appreciated the Annie Leonard digital video The Story of Stuff. The site details the social and environmental impact of consumption, and the fact that in a consumerist milieu, the entire sense of self-worth appears to be predicated on what you buy, what you wear, and having new and more “stuff.” Getting new stuff becomes a duty: wearing things to the point of disintegration is unAmerican. Whether terrorist attack or fiscal meltdown, the admonition is to “buy more.” Regardless of impetus, it is good to know that people are attempting to provide conscious alternatives.

Recycle a Tee makes organic cotton clothing with the environment in mind. The lifecycle of the shirt—from cotton field to landfill, from root to chute—is considered. They watch their waste at point of manufacturing, and give the shopper options if the top becomes too threadbare for further wear. Shirts can be sent back, shipping gratis, for a twenty-five percent store credit, or donated locally. Just log your donation at the site, and your account will be credited.

The jersey is light and resilient, and items include plain tanks and tee styles with v-necks for men. The t-shirts are printed with water-based inks with your choice of either a three-bent-arrows recycling logo or a tree design. Low-impact dyes color them white, red, yellow, pink, pomegranate, slate, and sky. Considering the earth and the sky? Consider Recycle a Tee.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, August 17th 2009

Victory Garden Supplies

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:11:00 +0000

By Enviroglas, VAST composite pavers, Seeds of Change

The Victory Garden project continues. While there have been temporary setbacks, a portion of the lot is overturned, sod torn up to reveal a formidable substratum of solid clay, and it occurs to me that the garden might need a path once April showers subside and leave May mud. Neighbors have been kind enough to show me their backyards, and this appears to be a common phenomenon. The gardener can turn to any one of a variety of containers to use as seed starters—the plastic box that held the strawberries that I sliced this morning provides a perfect example—and empty bottles and jars can be buried, upended, to border beds as decorative elements. However, that leaves stepping stones.

I have managed to scrounge a heap of scrap granite, broken corners of stone sheets that were supposed to become kitchen islands in condominiums, a nice variety of shades, silver and charcoal gray or a tigerish ocher to mottled maroon, but those with more resources or who favor a more uniform look could find themselves concerned with the environmental soundness of their materials. There are companies that provide pavers from recycled goods. Enviroglas is indeed made of old bottles, and is available in shades ranging from refined earth tones to a vivid red. They also offer Enviroscape—a mulch made of polished glass bits. (The bright blue might make me feel like I was living in an aquarium.)

If the feminist gardener prefers a brick-like veranda, VAST composite pavers are made from old tires and plastic bottles. One permaculturalist acquaintance uses tires liberated from roadsides as potato planters, but with the appropriate processing, old tires can be reborn as attractive and sturdy squares to step on. Also, these are much lighter than concrete, and seeing that I'm going to be doing any installation myself, that's another advantage. I'll put the path between the kale and the tomatoes.

There is a linguistic phenomenon known as the "garden path" sentence: "The horse raced past the barn fell." Another example is "Someone ate every tomato." Syntactic ambiguity: did one individual eat all the tomatoes, or did more than one person eat each individual variety? These distractions can be fun, but time may better spent trying to cultivate Fox cherry tomatoes, or perhaps Brandywine. Wish me luck.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 23rd 2009

recycled waste

Slate T-shirt

Victory Garden Supplies