Category: Environment

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Brands Companies Environment Projects I like

This Because

My good friend Zoe has just set up quite a brilliant thing: This Because.

TB

This Because is a website containing a carefully curated collection of products that are made resourcefully and help people live generously. It gives you a selection of products that aren’t just self-serving, products that benefit others in the process – be it sausages where a portion of the cost gets donated to impoverished areas, or upcycled purses that helps raise money for Women for Orphans and Widows. Products range from food to household items to clothing and each product tells the story of the cause and/or craft you’re supporting with your purchase.

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Art CSR Design Environment

23 Posters

Marina Willer

 

In the count down to Earth Hour, Do The Green Thing (quite possibly the most brilliant environment charity of all-time) is releasing a new poster everyday. Falling in line with Do The Green Thing’s mission of creativity vs. climate change, they’ve rallied together world class creatives and asked them to contribute a poster to the campaign. So here’s a small sampling. Do check out: Do The Green Thing Tumblr to see the full lineup and to buy a limited edition print.

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Environment

Bicycles Made from Old Cars

Rather that rot in a junkyard, these guys are turning old cars into bicycles. What an amazingly appropriate upcycle. A highly polluting vehicle to a zero-emissions one. Lovely stuff.

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community Environment Government

Crimes Against the Environment

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to love Red Truck Tuesday. It was the day when a special red rubbish truck would go around the neighbourhood and collect peoples big unwanted items to divert them from landfill. Missy and I used to find all sorts of treasures just siting on the curb, including one of these:

Fisher Price Car

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community Environment Events Friends London Projects I like

Feed and Read

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Since taking a sabbatical from 11-aside football on Sundays I’ve been looking for something to fill the void, something to occupy those extra 6 hours on my weekend. And I think I’ve found it. Feed and Read. Cake and books. Best sunday ever, basically.

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community Environment Events Social Media

Blog Action Day 2012: The Power of We

10 years ago, Facebook was still an idea and Google wasn’t used as a verb. Encyclopaedias lived in libraries, and tweet was the sound a bird made.

And now, the internet more so than any other platform in the past decade has changed the way we connect to the world, how we do business, receive and share information and so much more. It has even saved lives.

For Blog Action Day this year (a day where bloggers all over the world write for a cause), the theme is ‘the Power of We’. With the help of the internet we can now make a difference in ways we couldn’t in the past. We can now mobilise millions of people to support causes. We can crowdfund. And share energy. And the list goes on.

To fall in line with this year’s theme I thought it would only be appropriate for to help others to be the ‘we’ and be a part of something. So I’ve found five things you can do with a click of a mouse. Easy peasy.

1. Save the Arctic.

2. Stop land grabs.

3. Share GOOD inspiration with your friends.

4. Support a project that could change peoples’ lives.

5. Pledge to make difference – and then get others to join you.

To find out more about Blog Action Day, how you can get involved and to see some lovely posts, visit: http://blogactionday.org/.

 

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Brands CSR Design Environment Projects I like

Bottles Made From Ocean Debris

Our oceans are filled with plastic. Plastic that comes from the products we buy, carrier bags we dispose of and materials we discard.

Companies, both big and small have the choice to act and be proactive about the role they play in polluting the seas. Sadly few do.

Insert method: a lovely little soap American soap company.

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Environment London Projects I like Travel

Conscious Consumption in the Capital

This week sees the launch of London’s first ever Good and Green Guide – a carefully curated guide book that helps visitors and residents of London navigate their way around in a sustainable fashion. It’s timely for London as millions of visitors will be coming into town for the upcoming Olympic games and they’ll be able to experience an alternative way of spending their time and money here.

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Environment Travel

Slum Safaris. Not a Good Thing.

Upon a recent trip to Kenya, I was asked by my host family if I’d like to go on a slum safari. At first I thought it was a joke and then shortly clocked that it wasn’t. Slum safaris – these are real! Foreigners can pay money to go on a tour of Kibera in Kenya, East Africa’s largest slum.

This is reality tourism. And poverty shouldn’t be entertainment. Nor a good photography opp. It’s  dehumanising. Like a zoo. Or an exhibition. I think most of us would be unsettled if people paid money to walk around our house and see how we lived.

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Environment Fashion

The Search for Second-hand Clothes

Inspired by the lovely Liv (@theendofthenew) I decided 2012 would be the start of me buying as few new clothes as possible. Women in the UK waste £1.6 billion on clothes they’ll never wear and 1.2 million tonnes of this goes to landfill. Not so good for wallets or the environment.

In my bid to not buy new, I’ve spent a lot of time pounding the pavement trying to find good places to shop.

Decent charity shops are sometimes hard to come by. You either find ones with prices too high (yes even though it’s for charity, it’s hard to reconcile paying more for something used than you would for it new) or ones that tend to have not so stellar stock or ones that are brilliant but far away (case in point: Whitstable – amazing but too far to travel for clothes on a regular basis) So I’ve compiled a list of a few of my favs.

Oxfam, Dalston Junction.

  • This shop is big. And it works on a coloured label tag (ie: yellow labels, all £1). Plenty of bargains and a sizable homewares section. Best purchase here? A bright yellow leather clutch.

Save the Children Shop, Clapham.

  • Located on a road with plenty other charity shops and good for an afternoon adventure, loves this massive shop. It’s the kind of place to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. Although chaotic there are loads of bargains and plenty from my personal favourite decade, the 80s.

RSPCA, Stoke Newington. (aka The new kid on the block)

  • For moments when you’re considering popping in to the high road to buy a staple wardrobe item (black cardigan, white vest top, you know, those things) this is the place to go. They’ve got lots of stock and a good amount of ‘work clothes’. There’s also a Mind shop close by that’s also quite good. I bagged myself some Kurt Geiger pumps for a fiver last week. Score.

Salvation Army, Mare Street, Hackney.

  • If you’re after vintage but don’t want to pay the premium for something from past decades, this is your shop. The store is relatively new and has some usual but lovely clothes. Especially dresses. And shoes.

Lama’s Pyjama’s, Roman Road.

  • Lama’s is particularly good for accessories like belts, shoes and costume jewellery.

YMCA, Goodge Street.

  • This used to be my favourite place to go on lunch breaks with @jocorrall when I was at Do The Green Thing. It’s full of good (random) t-shirts and has lots of nice coats.

If you can think of any others I should add, please do share. I’m a bit biased to North-East London but that can change!