WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-01-22 Time: 10:00:11 Posted By: Jan
By Cathrin Schaer
Everyone knows you no longer have to grow dreadlocks and wear a hemp sack to live the environmentally friendly lifestyle. Being aware of eco-issues is, like, so hot right now, and the best design and an eco-friendly nature go together. It is possible to save the planet – and be stylish.
1 Wear locally made fashion
While overseas, the likes of actress Sienna Miller and designer Stella McCartney are clad only in beautifully designed organic cotton and fake fur, New Zealanders don’t have quite as many options.
Sure there are local clothing designers with an eye on the environment. Some of them have even wholeheartedly embraced the concept of a triple bottom line that involves profit, environmental sustainability and community involvement, labels like Miranda Brown, Untouched World, possum fur specialists and Nature Baby – one day we’re hoping the latter might make some of those chic striped cotton tops for grown-ups too.
But for aesthetics, most of the clothing you can get along these lines is still fairly niche and not exactly ultrafashionable.
And with a few exceptions – things like the No Sweat shoes sold at Trade Aid, the recycled plastic shoes from Brazilian label, Melissa, at the Jaimie boutique, and the Levi’s LEJ jeans made with organic denim – it’s pretty hard to work out exactly how environmentally friendly your new summer frocks or shoes are.
At least, with local labels at the upper end of the fashion spectrum you know that much of it has been made here, without exploiting any 12-year-olds or tipping buckets of poison into the local rivers. And if you have any concerns, you can easily ask your local design houses how they do business.
Your only other option is getting online to buy from overseas labels which are making eco-friendly clothing, but then you have to calculate the environmental impact of importing said items.
2 Recycle your fashion
Buy vintage and antique. Buy from second-hand designer stores. Sell secondhand frocks to friends. Sell on TradeMe. Organise a bitch and swap, where you swap clothing of equal value, drink wine and gossip.
Cut, sew, alter and customise your clothes to keep up with trends and turn oldies into goodies. Just don’t wear it once then throw it out mindlessly. It’s all about conscious living, considering your purchases, where they came from and where they’re going to end up.
3 Use natural beauty products
Local makers of beauty products are way ahead of the local fashion industry on this one. There are several fantastic brands making, in some cases, some of the cleanest, greenest skincare in the world.
But there are also many pretenders out there making money off the fact they happened to include a few peppermint leaves and a couple of strawberries in their otherwise utterly synthetic product.
So how to tell the difference? Some would say organic certification allows you to tell, especially if it’s from overseas.
However this is not always possible as some ingredients in some of the most organic ranges may be grown in the wild and do not bear classification. Other pundits advise reading the label and looking out for chemical-sounding ingredients, like parabens, formaldehyde releasing ingredients and artificial fragrances, rather than natural ones. But once again, the theory could be flawed, as some manufacturers list their natural ingredients by their scientific names.
Keith Harvey, the man behind Original Skin, one of the newest New Zealand organics ranges says people should do their research before buying.
“It’s a good opportunity for everyone to learn more about skincare,” Harvey says. “And if you hear or read words that you don’t understand, then research it on the Internet. It’s becoming a lot more difficult to pull the wool over people’s eyes.”
The other big problem with organic cosmetics is the relative lack of good makeup colours. Most of the organic skincare companies which have gone into this seem to think their customers only want to wear old-fashioned, organic colours, like brown and peach.
Most trendsetters are waiting for their favourite green brands to follow in the footsteps of a firm like Couleur Caramel, with its up-to-date colours and overtly eco-but-stylish recycled paper packaging.
4 Make like a French woman
Take your wheelie bin shopping for baguettes, or anything and everything else you like. If that seems a little hard to handle, let alone navigate in the streets, get yourself a good-looking shopping bag, a large one that’s good for everything from clothing purchases to a trip to the dairy.
Fashion industry insiders recommend such cunning items as the very portable Mimco shopping bags, which fold into a wallet-sized packet that you can store inside your purse until you make a purchase. That way, you can take self righteous pleasure in refusing additional packaging you don’t really need while looking fashionable and eco-savvy.
5 Use biodegradable plates
The New Zealand firm Potatopak (www.potatopak.co.nz) makes affordable plates, trays and other items out of potato starch. In the process it uses less oil and when you chuck out the plate or tray afterwards, it bio-degrades within five weeks. It’s all about reducing your waste and keeping an eye on the packaging.
And oddly, for such a simple thing, they look good. Now, wouldn’t it be grand if local supermarkets didn’t just sell these items for your barbecue and party requirements but they used them in all the places they currently use dirty old styrofoam trays, which you only use for five minutes but which take years to break down?
6 Sit yourself in an eco chair
This timber-framed chair allows the owner to play dress ups with the back and seat cushions. The designers of the chair – Nathan Goldsworthy, James Whitta and Stuart Barr – asked three local design houses, Zambesi, World and Andrea Moore, to come up with different cover designs.
So yes, it’s a rather good-looking piece of locally produced furniture, free from the dictates of interiors trends, because you can always change it. Which is why the Tio won the Sustainable Design Award at this year’s Best Awards, run by the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand. Note: The runner up was a similarly adaptable and very good-looking piece of furniture, the Player bed, by Tauranga firm, DesignMobel.
Angela Roper, owner of the Eon Design centre, which stocks the Tio, says the best way to go green with your interiors is to try to buy locally made goods. “Ethically you know the labour side of things is good. Second, the raw materials are likely to be renewable resources from New Zealand, like pine.”
And third, the Eon Design Centre, which specialises in locally made homewares, is moving closer to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly office environment by the day. Currently staff do things like shred all their waste paper and use it for packaging and use recycled paper for stationery. Things should go even further soon, Roper says. The company’s potential new premises will allow her to outfit the office and retail space in a green way, including energy-saving lights and appliances.
7 Drive a diesel car
Peugeot’s new HDI diesel engine car, for instance. And yes, the new hybrid cars like Toyota’s Prius are certainly flavour of the month among green-loving celebrities.
But although the hybrid cars are popular – they use a combination of a petrol engine and an electric engine to increase fuel efficiency and keep emissions low – it turns out the new diesel engines, with better air filters and cleaner diesel, are just as good.
And in some categories, such as fuel efficiency, potentially even better than an electric-petrol hybrid. Motoring experts say the ultimate green vehicle will eventually involve a diesel-electric hybrid. Oh yes, almost forgot – because most of the new environmentally friendly diesels are made by European car manufacturers like Peugeot, they’re also pretty stylish.
Other transport options involve walking, Mod-style electric scooters, car pooling with other followers of fashion, or maybe the hip, new-retro pastime of cycling everywhere with all the neighbourhood art students.
8 Plant some trees
Put some shorts on and plant a tree in your garden. Or herbs on your inner-city apartment balcony. Although you probably won’t fit enough trees into your backyard to offset the carbon produced by your car, there’s no harm in doing your bit because, as you’ve heard before, the power of every individual consumer counts on this issue. Low carbon diets and carbon neutrality seem to be the biggest buzzwords among the environmentally friendly at the moment.
9 Become an eco-sexual
Part-hippie, part-metrosexual, this new breed of style-and-green-conscious individual goes to day spas that use organic skincare, thinks before flying long distance and prefers to holiday at local eco-resorts, drinks Fair Trade coffee, walks to the corner store, buys locally produced food and always pushes the small button on the toilet.
So whether you met your date on a website like Britain’s www.natural-friends.com or not, eco-smarts will soon be considered sexy.
10 Don’t stop reading
Get hold of some of the stylish, new interiors and fashion magazines with a down-to-earth, green background.
These include Dwell, which comes across a bit like a greenies version of Wallpaper interiors magazine, Metropolis magazine and Sublime magazine, an eco-style title from Britain. And Inhabitat is an excellent sustainable-style weblog to check out.
While not quite as pretty, other new titles like Green Living, Eco-Options and Green Light from the United States are also useful habitat rags.
Some, such as Dwell, are available in New Zealand stores while others you’ll need to use the Internet. – New Zealand Herald
Websites: <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.dwell.com/class=”sectlink”>www.dwell.com, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/class=”sectlink”>www.metropolismag.com, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.sublimemagazine.com/class=”sectlink”>www.sublimemagazine.com, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.inhabitat.com/class=”sectlink”>www.inhabitat.com, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.greenlivingenterprises.ca/class=”sectlink”>www.greenlivingenterprises.ca/ecooptions, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.greenlivingmagazine.ca/class=”sectlink”>www.greenlivingmagazine.ca, <a href="/outgoing.php3?URL_to=http://www.greenlightmag.com/index.phpclass=”sectlink”>www.greenlightmag.com
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=iol1170842618692N264