Green Options

The Bamboo Bike Project is a project by Scientists and Engineers at The Earth Institute, Columbia University, and aims to examine the feasibility of implementing cargo bikes made of bamboo as a sustainable form of transportation in Africa.

What? American Craft Council Salon Series: Craft’s Contribution to a Sustainable World - Bamboo Bicycles

Where? American Craft Council Library (6th Floor) 72 Spring Street, New York, New York

When? This upcoming Wednesday, August 12, 6:30-7:30 p.m.

How? $10; $5 for students with current ID. To rsvp, contact Kate at intern@craftcouncil.org or call (212) 274–0630 x272.

What Else? “Join us in the Council’s library for this summer’s Salons exploring Craft’s Contribution to a Sustainable World. This Bamboo Bike Project is creating a new model for social entrepreneurship and development, using craft, DIY techniques, and natural resources.”

Specific speakers include Marty Odlin (of Bamboo Bikes) & Justin Aguinaldo (biking expert). Marty Odlin is co-founder and engineer of the Bamboo Bike Studio and assistant director of the Education Center for Sustainable Engineering at Columbia University, and he will discuss the history of this project, as well as its implications in other fields. Marty will be joined by Justin Aguinaldo, a New York bike messenger who brings his expertise of bike mechanics to the project.

If you are crafty with upholstery (who wouldn’t love those huge tacks? That gorgeous upholstery fabric?), or were thinking about learning how to reupholster a couch or slipcover an ottoman, or perhaps if you just have some ratty old furniture that could use a good makeover, take note.

American Lifestyle magazine (”Celebrating Life in America”) has announced its first ever DIY contest. The theme for this first year is “upholstery,” and the emphasis is eco-friendly, on the refurbishing of a piece of furniture instead of discarding it.

Ever forget your wedding anniversary? Your spouse’s/partner’s birthday? Perhaps forgetting the anniversary on which you started blogging isn’t quite the same, but after six years and thousands of posts, I felt like a total dolt when I realized today that July 10th (not today, the 12th) was sustainablog’s “birthday.”

That’s right: six years (and two days) ago, I created a new Blogger account, and started wrestling with this concept of sustainability that I’d only recently discovered. There’ve been lots of twists and turns since then, but it’s really gratifying to look back and see the growth and development of my little blog in that time.

While most of us associate birthdays/anniversaries with gifts and celebrations, these dates are also the perfect time for expressing gratitude, and looking forward (as well as back). I owe many people thanks for their support, including

The folks at Green Options: sustainablog’s always been a little unique in the GO network: rather than narrowly focusing on a niche within the green world, we’ve always done a little bit of everything. That has its ups and down, and I’m grateful to my friends at GO (and new parent company Virgance) for their patience with and support of our model.

The green blogosphere: You can’t blog in a vacuum… or, at least, you can’t blog in a vacuum and expect to build much of an audience. From early on, sustainablog’s received a ton of support from both big and small players within the green online media space. Special hat tips to Grist (one of the first big sites to link to us), Treehugger (for the writing gig and frequent linkage), Worldchanging (for frequent early linkage and some guest posting opportunities), Triplepundit, HuffPo Green, Green, Inc., Greenbiz, Lighter Footstep… I’m just getting started. Whether you’re listed or not, know that I appreciate your support.

Saving the planet through story is how Arianna shaped the green panel she moderated at the Produced By Conference held at Sony Picture Studios over the weekend.  The Conference was put on by the Producer’s Guild of America and co-helmed by the legendary Gale Anne Hurd.

If a person’s clout can be measured by the resources they can commandeer, then Hurd is most certainly still at the top of the Hollywood heap.  Not only was the Sony Pictures Studio lot supremely pleasant to stroll around, but volunteers were everywhere to assist with even small things like fetching water. Seriously.

And Sunday’s complimentary lunch featured no less than 10 honey wagons set up to serve the likes of lobster rolls, shrimp tempura and teriyaki flank steak.  Hurd commented to me that people were already asking her when next year’s conference was going to happen and said that “we didn’t even think we’d pull this one off!”  They expected 600 attendees - 900 paying producers showed up.

In the Spring on Ecolocalizer we featured the start of the Yahoo! Green “Make it Green” Competition. Now with only one week left, the possibilities for new entries are endless. If you have a brilliant eco-creative idea, and want to see it manufactured for real, then enter now. Yahoo! Green explains:

“the best ideas will be made into real products and stocked on real shelves. The innovator will get a share of the sales for 20 years, plus $2,500 and possibly an appearance on PBS’s Everyday Edisons.  It’s a great way to turn an idea into reality.  For this last week, we’re waiving the submission fee.   We’ve had more than 110 ideas submitted and 10,000 votes from the community.”

So what is most popular idea so far? Well,

Apparently, the pine wood snake has a very distinctive schlong: no one who entered our “Name that Schlong” contest confused it with the penis of, say, a blesbok or a dragonfly, or any of the other “members” of the Grand Gallery of Penises. Well done, schlong-namers!

Now, on to the important stuff…

We have a winner!

It’s an experience many of us relish– taking a weekend stroll through the colors, sounds, and smells of a local farmers market and then choosing fresh items to take back to our homes, as well crafts, or maybe a cd from a local band. We know that the food will eventually fill our stomachs contently, or that another item we found will be a perfect and unique gift for a special friend or family member.

This summer you can show your support for your favorite farmers market, by helping it win a $5000 reward. Care2.com and Localharvest.org are sponsoring this great online contest. The $5000 top prize will be awarded to the farmer’s market that is voted the most popular by internet users like you.

UPDATE: We’ve got a new Green Porno contest running… check it out.

If you’ve had dreams about Isabella Rossellini wandering through a forest of enlarged animal penises (peni?), either you need to get to the shrink quickly, or you’ve been watching Sundance Channel’s Green Porno series very regularly. If the latter’s the case, let’s see how much you’ve picked up…

Name that Schlong

Take a look at the picture above. The arrow in the picture is pointing out a specific species’ penis. Know what it is?  Name it… in the comments. Need help?  Check out the main contest post at Sundance’s SUNfiltered blog (disclosure: I’m a blogger there).

 

Pratt was the star of this year’s ICFF Design Schools’ Exhibition with their Design for a Dollar contest. Amazingly, with the design constraint of using a buck or less, the Pratt students invented brilliant eco home ideas (many upcycled from totally discarded items). The competition required students to create designs that include manufacturing costs, transportation, energy, material, labor and waste issues.

While Ecologic Designs (one of my previous posts) is thriving by making practical products out of various waste streams – demonstrating green innovation and up-cycling – some artists around the world are working with a new medium: trash. These artists are coming together, actively gathering vast quantities of debris floating up on shorelines or collecting waste wherever it might be piling up and turning it into beautiful pieces of art.

On a trip to Santa Monica, California, a friend treated my family and I to an amazing – if not also disturbing and mind-opening – display of crocheted sculptures created from trash.  The exhibit, Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reefs by the Institute for Figuring, was displayed in several rooms of the Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station.  The Institute For Figuring (IFF) is an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts.

Created and curated by Christine and Margaret Wertheim, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit was a stunning display of an ingenious use of waste materials, creativity and community, bringing together various reefs created by artists from around the world.  The exhibition also brought attention to the plight of our oceans and the depository for our trash that it’s become, accidental or otherwise. The Crochet Coral Reef Project of the Institute For Figuring is conceived as “a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.”

Rhonda wants you to get your upcycle on for fun and profit!

Her Etsy shop, The Junk Stop is full of awesome recycled goodies, and now Rhonda is hosting a contest to get us upcycling, too. It’s easy to enter, and I can’t wait to see finished projects start rolling in over on the Recycled Craft Challenge Flickr pool. The winner gets a $20 gift certificate to The Junk Stop! Here’s how you enter: