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Editor’s note: Most weeks, we feature product reviews from our friends at Life Goggles. In this week’s post, though, Joel takes a look at British retailer Marks & Spencer’s innovative approach to dealing with products at the end of their useful lives: clothing recycling. This post was originally published on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
For 6 months (that started at the end of January), Marks & Spencer (M&S) have joined forces with Oxfam to set up a clothing exchange. Designed with the dual purpose of encouraging people to recycle clothes and raise money for Oxfam’s work, customers who donate M&S clothes to Oxfam will receive a voucher £5/€7, valid for one month, to use with their next purchase of £35/€50 or more. Although buying new clothes paid for with old clothes isn’t the best way of doing things in my opinion, it’s certainly not a bad way of encouraging people to recycle clothes if they are planning on buying more anyway. And perhaps they’ll find something they like in Oxfam!
By Jennifer Lance •
February 13, 2008
Emmanuel Tonggun of Uganda, age 15, described how heavy rainfall and too much sun destroy vegetation and decrease soil fertility.
By Jennifer Lance •
February 11, 2008
Sure you can buy your sweeties organic flowers or chocolate and have your children decorate Valentines made from recycled paper; however, in my family, we have another tradition. Every year for Valentine’s Day, we take the opportunity to buy a fruit tree or rose bush. What better way to express our love than to give a gift that may offset some of our carbon footprint?
I love chocolate as much as the next guy/gal, but I am not a fan of cut flowers, even though I worked in flower shop in high school. Lavish bouquets purchased to celebrate holidays have spawned a thriving industry that heavily relies on pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. According to the Wise Geek:
Most cut flowers are grown in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia in large greenhouse environments staffed by underpaid, non-unionized workers…Because cut flowers are grown in nations with more lax environmental laws, many banned substances including DDT and methyl-bromide are used in flower production…Some cut flowers may be shipped thousands of miles, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at every step of the way.
By Alicia Erickson •
October 5, 2007
Fair Trade Towns USA is "a campaign organized by local and national Fair Trade advocates whose aim is to encourage and support the Fair Trade Movement
in the U.S. Following the example of the Fair Trade movement in Europe, the campaign strives to support local, grassroots groups by offering tools and resources to become a Fair Trade town or city through successful local campaigns."
This campaign makes it even easier for your town
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