Mother's Day/ Gulf Oil Spill

This Sunday, May 9th, is Mother's Day in the United States and I would like to give a shout out to all the awesome & amazing mothers out there. There is nothing as challenging and as rewarding as being a mom.

As children we love and take care of our mothers. As a mothers we take care and protect our children at all costs; we give them life & food [see above]. I believe that one of the best ways to take care of our children, and our children's children, is by taking care of the Earth, and it, in turn, will take care of us. Hence the name Mother Earth.

And here I was going to create a list of all the eco-friendly ways to honor our mothers, but in light of the recent catastrophic oil spill I would like to share some suggestions I have found of ways to help.

• Volunteer suggestions from the Daily Green
• Donation suggestions from The Daily Beast
• Including Matter of Trust which collects hair donations- did you know that a pound of hair can soak up a quart of oil in 1 minute- and be reused up to 100 times? I did not.
• An extensive list from the Huffington Post

Please do what you can to minimize the damage to Mother Earth and make her a part of your mother's day celebration.

Cheers and Happy Mother's Day!

Your House Without You

Have you seen this? Guess how many years it would take for your home to disappear - then watch...



And that seems to be not withstanding all the stuff that would be in your house.

From the site for Alan Weisman's new book, The World Without Us.

All aboard!

I’m the first to admit I have romantic notions about trains. I have sentimental attachments to them as my memories from them are all fun. Riding with my girl scout friends in elementary school (can’t remember where we went, but I know it involved giggling), riding with my mormor in Sweden, doing the Eurail thing with Laurel (We only got kicked off once, in Italy for accidentally getting on the bullet train when we’d only paid the regular train fare. Those Italian train conductors were a bit intense.), avoiding (this time on purpose by hiding in the bathroom) paying the fare to Båstad with Daniel (during a year I spent in Lund, Sweden) and travelling to the Norwegian fjords in 2001 (as seen above and below – the only photos of mine from my train adventures that I could find).



Most recently I took the train from Emeryville, California to Auburn, California (riding the Zephyr). I had no idea it would be such a party. I left on a Friday, and the train was surprisingly populated. Commuter regulars were opening their mini-wines (bought in the dining car), and celebrating the end of the work week. Some staggered down the aisles with lemon-capped beers. On the way back to SF, the train was also quite populated, this time with Oakland A’s baseball game goers. A cute granddad and his decked out in Oakland A gear grandson quietly picnicked together.

My point is, I love trains. I do not understand why there aren’t bullet trains and regular train riding going on all over the US. It is so much more environmentally sound (and safer) than car driving en masse or riding the plane! And you can read, get work done, dine, have a party, play cards, draw, take photos, journal, walk around, craft, etc. on the train!

The SF Guardian recently had a good article about Schwarzenegger’s postponing the realization of a California bullet train. The California bullet train has been in the works since the 1980’s, and in planning for almost 10 years. Why is it taking so long? There are these folks who say a bullet train would cut into hundreds of parks and protected areas in California. This is obviously not good for the environment. But I wonder in the long run, which has a greater impact, cutting into some of these protected areas (I’m assuming not by huge amounts since the rail would run alongside existing rails), or continued degradation due to so much car driving (which will only increase as the population increases, and which will require wider and more roads, also cutting into land). The reason Schwarzenegger is not getting this train moving is not related to the land impact however. His reason is all about cost-effectiveness in the short term. When are politicians going to realize we need to think in the long term, especially if they’re claiming, as Schwarzenegger is, to be environmentally conscious?!

Honestly, I think it will be hard to persuade car-drivers to switch to the train. But with some good advertising, with growing awareness of how our car-centered lives are severely hurting our environment, and with a bullet train travelling much faster than a car, perhaps a slow transition to trainriding and public transport is possible....

In the Bay Area, you can get involved with the bullet-train supporters. And write to Schwarzenegger.

Some flickry train goodness:
longing.
waking up on the train at 6 am.
from driftwould
7-1
an old train car

It's all about the dining car:
dining car nap
dining car (check out those seats!)
dining car table
lunch on the train

If you’re looking for a train-related movie, Station Agent is one of my all-time favorites.

Knit* Green

(* = crochet, embroider, etc.)

I was a little girl growing up in Southern California when my mother taught me to knit. Living in Southern California where the temperature rarely dropped below 70 degrees, did not inspire me to become an avid knitter. It was not until I moved to North Carolina, befriended an environmentalist, and started stitch-n-bitch chapel hill that I truly became the knitter I am today. Aside from a knitter, I am an ecologist, and at the time I was doing research on organic farms on cabbageworms. It was a combination of my involvement with the organic farming community and the amazing activist girls of my stitch-n-bitch that lead me to thinking green.

So why knit* green? Well, one of our greatest powers as individuals is our power of purchase. The demand for higher environmental standards have, at least in part, brought about the increase in organic products at your market, and the higher production of fuel-efficient cars. Why not put that same pressure on the textile industry as dutch girl suggested in her earlier sew green post ?

Here are a few facts, guidelines and suggestions on how to knit* greener that I have accumulated through my years as a knitter and ecologist:

Knit* Local.
This is a similar principal to buying your fruits and vegetables from local growers. Although the statistics are not available on the cost of transporting yarn, large amounts of fossil fuels are used to get products to you. It is estimated that food products travel 1,500 miles before being consumed (Heller & Keoleian). How far do you think yarn travels? One would imagine, since a large proportion of yarn comes from countries outside of N. America and Europe, that the mileage might be even higher for yarn. The closer the farm is to you, the less fossil fuel used. Check out your local farmers market or sheep and wool festival (google it for festival near your town) to find out where to get yarn close to home. Not only are you knitting* greener, but you are also supporting small independent farmers and artisans.

Knit* Recycled.
Local yarn can be very expensive. Some of us don’t have that kind of money to spend on being greener, so an alternative is using what has already been produced and transported. This requires a different perspective on knitting* since you can’t necessarily plan on what to knit*, but rather let the yarn inspire you. There is no doubt this could lead to incredibly creative projects! I am always amazed at how much yarn ends up at thrift stores (think about your own stash of yarn). Sometimes you can find very nice yarn and lots of it. Admittedly a huge proportion of the yarn I find is acrylic - but that can be used for a blanket or baby clothes that need to be washable. Another alternative is find and unravel a wool product like a sweater that may be perfectly hideous but is knit out of beautiful yarn. There are some great articles about recycling old sweaters for new projects here, here, and here. You can also use old cotton sheets or t-shirts ripped in strips to knit* a rug, or plastic shopping bags to knit* a sturdy shopping or tote bag. Hell, you can even knit* yourself a 1950s outfit!

Knit* Alternative
More and more yarn companies are offering eco-friendly (and animal-friendly) wool yarns (including my beloved cascade yarns). These are generally yarns that are not dyed, or that are acquired using sustainable and/or humane farming practices. But for those who want to avoid wool altogether, there are now a number of yarn alternatives on the market made from organic or alternative fibers. It is important to be aware that classic alternatives to wool yarn are neither sustainable nor eco-friendly (see below).

What about Acrylic and Cotton?
Acrylic yarn is made from acrylonitrile, which is considered an environmental pollutant and hazardous to human health (more info. here and here). Producing acrylic is a highly chemically-dependent industry and produces pollutants, such as the organic solvents N,N-dimethylmethanamide and sodium thiocyanate, vinyl acetate, and methyl acrylate .

Avoid yarn made from conventionally grown cotton because of the industry’s dependence on pesticides (“…nearly $2.6 billion worth of pesticides -- more than 10% of the world's pesticides and nearly 25% of the world's insecticides,” according to the Pesticide Action Network North America). Seek out organic cotton alternatives, such as Blue Sky Alpacas or Green Mountain Spinnery.

What’s the Alternative?
Its amazing what you can knit* with nowadays. There are numerous alternatives to wool, cotton, and acrylic for eco-friendly and animal-friendly knitters. Including silk (note: silk does kill silkworms/caterpillars), soy, bamboo (but see comments on post), corn, hemp & nettle! Check out more options here and here.



Six years later and 5 hours north in DC, I am still studying bugs and still knitting*. Am I a greener knitter? Well... I do not knit* with hemp yarn or make recycled plastic bag rugs but I do buy most of my yarn from eco-friendly companies. I promote buying local yarn and the DC stitch-n-bitch en mass heads to the sheep and wool festival each May. So yes, I am getting a little greener every year. And every little green step counts.

It’s not easy, being green. Or Indigo for that matter…

So when I first meet someone and the inevitable question of what I “do” comes up in conversation. The answer is usually met with some sort of the following:

a) strange brow furrowing and nose twitching
b) blank stare
c) snicker
d) snicker followed by “So, like, what? Hemp?”

Ah, the joys of being an eco-fashion designer! What does all this mean? Do I have to wear hemp? Do I have to be vegan? What the hell is mud dye anyway? Being a fashion designer and being organic and sustainable used to be worlds apart. The reason? Because high quality organic and sustainable fashion fabrics were in short supply (if available at all.) Organic cotton? What for? Why? Sustainable and organic wool? What’s the difference? Why bother? What was available 10 years ago was natural hemp and linen. Not a whole lot else. That isn’t true anymore. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe you need to know WHY before we go anywhere else.

The fashion industry is one of the most pollutant causing industries in the world. From the farming of raw materials to washing of the final product, almost every step there is an opportunity for greening. Since I work in the denim industry I feel like I am most qualified to talk about the greening steps involved in one pair of simple jeans. This is a long article but I feel if you begin to understand what goes into something as simple as pants you can see the sum gain of the larger picture.

Jeans, and in specific cotton, is one of the most pollutant pieces of clothing that any one person can own. Unfortunately it takes 2/3 of a pound of pesticides to make one pair of jeans, and 1/3 of a pound to make a single T-shirt. A pair of jeans only weighs about a pound! That sort of ratio is unheard of in any other crop. While conventional cotton accounts for 2% of global agriculture it requires 10% of global pesticide use. The EPA says that conventional agriculture is responsible for 70% of all problems in U.S. rivers and streams.

When it comes to going organic in fashion there are certain criteria, just like food, that need to be followed. Organically grown cotton has been produced without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. A field must be pesticide free for three years for the cotton to be certified organic. This insures that the land is free of any residual chemicals that could enter into the plants and cause contamination.

Why is contamination important? According to the EPA, five of the top nine pesticides used in cotton production in the US (cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite, and trifluralin) are known cancer-causing chemicals. The EPA classifies all five pesticides as Category I and II, the most dangerous of chemicals. While these pesticides are washed out by the time the cotton gets ginned, farm workers suffer the most by being in direct contact with many of these chemicals. The World Health Organization estimates accidental pesticide poisoning causes 20,000 deaths and 3 million non-fatal poisonings every year, worldwide. Not only that – but this stuff gets in your foods! 60 percent of a cotton crop, by weight, enters the food chain in the form of cottonseed oil which is used widely in processed foods, and as cottonseed feed for cows. The pesticide residues from these cottonseeds concentrate in the tissues of these animals, and are passed on to consumers in meat and dairy products. This is a big deal because these chemicals were originally formulated as nerve gases for warfare, at least 107 pesticide active ingredients are carcinogenic. Pesticides have been responsible for birth defects, respiratory problems, behavioral changes, infertility, sterility, and hormonal imbalances. Imagine that next time you eat a bag of chips containing cottonseed oil.

Not only farm workers suffer but animals do too! In 1994, Australian beef was found to be contaminated with the cotton insecticide Helix® (chlorfluazuron), most likely because cattle had been fed contaminated cotton straw. One year later, farmers were alarmed to discover that newborn calves were also contaminated with Helix, apparently because it was passed through their mother's milk. In 1995, pesticide-contaminated runoff from cotton fields killed at least 240,000 fish in Alabama. Shortly after farmers had applied pesticides containing endosulfan and methyl parathion to cotton fields, heavy rains washed them into the water causing the deaths.

The next step in fabric to jean is the dye process. Lately this is where marketing departments are having a field day with you. Most of the debate circles around “Natural” indigo. “It’s so much better!” they tell you. “It’s not chemical dye!” they extol. The kicker is they are right… to a point. No matter what kind of indigo you use, synthetic or natural you need developer to bring out the blue. That developer is a cancer-causing agent Thiox. There isn’t a way (yet!) to develop indigo without it and just knowing that information can help you pick apart what people are selling you. Our jeans use indigo. Not using indigo won’t happen any time soon – but where we strive to cut down on harmful impact is in the wash and finishing process – the last stage in the making of your blue jeans.

When ever people talk about “the wash” in regards to denim they aren’t talking about getting rid of dirt. “The Laundry” or “the wash” is where color gets applied to jeans, they get stonewashed, ground down, distressed etc. This is a battleground for greening. Most factories aren’t regulated in China. There are no official standards to follow when it comes to treatment of wash waters or irritants. There are no agencies to run checks and no one to care about where that water goes once it leaves the factories. There are no standards for worker safety either. Many times workers will be in rooms with sandblasting equipment inhaling particulate matter. That matter lodges in your lungs and causes cancer. Resins and distressing chemicals are applied with little protection. In the US, and most specifically in the factory that we work with in Texas, there are strict policies and standards in place with regards to this sorts of finishing.

When we set out to design a new wash we investigate and use some of the most green washes we can. We don’t use a chlorination processes in regards to bleaching down color. We prefer to instead use a hydrogenation process. This results in cleaner wash water when removing color. Hydrogen breaks down into water much better than chlorine and doesn’t have the same effect on water wildlife.

The wash water in the factory that does our work is welled from a private spring that lives under the factory (does this sound just a bit too idyllic? It did for me!) The water is treated so that it is almost as clean when it exits the factory, as it is when it enters. Why? Because this water is used to irrigate the alfalfa fields that surround the factory. This alfalfa is then sold as feed to family farms. The factory is working to close the loop. The pumice stones that are used in the stonewashing machines are not thrown into the trash or dumped in a river. They are further ground up and added to soil as an aeration device. Lastly, for our jeans we only have our people hand sand. With hand sanding there is no particulate matter and the people working on our denim are not at risk for disease or cancer.

That’s a lot isn’t it?

At the end of the day these are the things that you should look for when buying jeans. Organic Cotton. Hand work. Clean water standards. Made in the USA. With labor standards in LA and Texas being some of the highest in the country you can’t guarantee perfection, but you know you are working with people who care enough to pay a fair wage. You know that these people aren’t being exposed to the sorts of chemicals that workers in China endure.

I hope I haven’t bored you. I hope you feel you know a little more about why organic isn’t just for food anymore. I hope to tackle other issues and to tell you about who are working towards a greener fashion standard here and around the world! I’ve really enjoyed writing this and thank you for the time to let me vent!

Green Like Veggies

At one of my favourite vegan restaurants, Native Foods, the manager always writes animal friendly quotes on the chalkboards that line the walls of the restaurant. The other night I sat under a sign that read, "According to a new UN report, the meat & dairy industry produce more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined." I sat under that sign pondering how powerful that statement is and finally asked the manager for more information. She had taken that quote from VegNews Magazine.
A quick search lead me to the UN report and this article relating to the report:

"Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation, and smarter production methods, including improved animal diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions."
"Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing."

Why was this so shocking? I became vegetarian in 7th grade after researching a report on rainforests and was horrified by what the meat industry did to the land. I remember crying while reading about the deforestation. Now, 15 years later, I am surprised and horrified by the fact that this continues almost unnoticed.

Global warming and pollution are huge issues right now, as they should be, but the issue is always addressed in terms of cars and "industry" [in general]. It seems to me that people could have a larger effect on global warming if they gave up meat & dairy en masse. We need to reduce & rethink transportation methods in terms of CO2 emissions; doing so could have a huge effect but according to this report if meat & dairy consumption double by 2050, no hybrid car has a chance of making a dent in global warming. Scary.

So what can you do? Give up or reduce meat & dairy consumption. There are already a million health reasons to do so and more so, a billion amazing & delicious reasons.

Here is a list of some of my favourite vegan [don't let that word scare you; vegans have a wonderfully rich and varied diet and are not all "preachy" and righteous. Plus dark chocolate and most sugars are totally vegan, OK and french fries are as well.] recipe resources:

1. Vegan Lunchbox
2. Post Punk Kitchen [I have had amazing results with her recipes]
3. Also check out her Vegan Cupcake book!
4. The Vegan Chef
5. Veg Web
6. Vegan Food
7. Becoming Vegan [first and best vegan health book I have owned]

More reason to eat your organic veggies!

Cheers!