Consciously Curated: Helle Jorgensen

 

 

Oh, the lovely soft sculptures of Australia-based artist Helle Jorgensen. What makes them ecofabulous? Well, she makes barnacles from reclaimed wool, and turns discarded plastic bags into beautifully crafted sea anemones. Hmm, I imagine that she finds the reclaimed wool at garage sales and thrift shops, but where does she get that plastic yarn? She makes it herself of course, and if you have the patience that’s required, she’ll even teach you how it’s done.

via ecofabulous.

Sole trader takes recycling in his stride

 

 

As protests continue across the Middle East, American shoemaker Bahman Irvani remembers 1979. That year, he and his family fled Iran after the revolution leaving behind their thriving footwear business.”We left Iran because the government took over not only our businesses but our personal assets as well,” said 59-year-old Irvani, whose family had been manufacturing shoes there for over 50 years.In 1983, the family business was reborn, a long way from Iran, in Buford, Georgia in the United States.Irvani called his new enterprise “Okabashi” in honor of the Japanese practice of reflexology and, as the companys website states their shoes have: “tiny massaging beads are strategically placed across the foot-bed of each shoe to stimulate different areas of the sole.”

via CNN.com.

Waste recycling plant launched in Tuas

Waste recycling firm NewEarth Singapore (NES) – which counts mainboard-listed Beng Kuang Marine and Tuas Power among its partners – broke ground yesterday on its new $15 million waste re-utilisation plant at Tuas.

The facility will transform industrial waste into environmentally-safe construction and reclamation materials such as bricks and paving blocks.

Employing its patented ‘crystallisation technology’, NES will, for instance, collect coal bottom ash from Tuas Power’s $2 billion biomass/clean coal plant starting up in end-2012 for this purpose.

The generating company is the majority 60 per cent stakeholder in the joint venture company NewEarth Pte Ltd which owns the technology. NewEarth Pte Ltd’s other partner is Water and Environmental Technologies (a subsidiary of SGX-listed Beng Kuang).

Read more at eco-business.com

New York to implement clothing recycling program

In Singapore where we are so stuck on whats new and trendy (not such a great trend in itself) there would be a great use for an idea like this! Someone please stand up and do this, you can count me in!

Starting in September, New York City will launch one of the largest textile recycling initiatives in the nation. The aim is to make it easy to donate clothing, almost as easy as throwing it away.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans pitch almost 10 pounds of socks, jeans, shirts and sheets per year, per person. In New York, where 190,000 tons of textiles entered the city’s landfills in 2008 alone, the plan would place 50 collection bins in high-traffic areas.

via Yahoo! News.

The Life Box: solutions for re-greening the planet

If ever you needed extra incentive to recycle the packaging that comes with all your purchases, The Life Box is it. Simply tear up, plant and water, and voila, you’ve planted several trees.

(They’d have to be native to your location though, we think).

What is The Life Box™?

The Life Box™ was invented by Paul Stamets, mycologist, author and founder of Fungi Perfecti®, LLC. The Life Box™ suite of products builds upon the synergy of fungi and plants by infusing spores and seeds together inside of packaging materials that can be planted.

Read more at The Life Box

Karang Guni Chic

Stuart Haygarth collects things and then displays them. Stuff you can find in flea markets become stunning exhibits, like his collection of bottles and vases which he then categorizes by color. The results are amazing.

New Soap, Old Bottle

A company in the U.S. buys brand-name detergents and soaps and sells them to consumers in recycled plastic and glass bottles, calling it an eco-initiative aiming to “give consumers a greener option”.

The company doesn’t vouch for the eco-friendliness of the contents of the bottles, but you get the drift.