Green Options

Two companies, one from France and one from Napa, California, use wind power to transport wine.

Have you ever considered how your wine from abroad is transported? How much carbon does it take for one bottle of imported wine to reach your local grocery store, especially from a faraway vineyard in Australia? How can those bottles shipped from so far away be so cheap? Are we externalizing the cost to the environment for future generations to pick up the tab? What about all of those other products we buy from abroad? Could there be another way that doesn’t involve burning so much coal?

Everyday I come across something on Etsy that surprises and gets me excited about the endless recycled craft possibilities. This week I came across reiter8, an upcycling crafter from Brooklyn that takes sailboat sails that would otherwise go to the dump and creates bags and pillows out of the canvas.

The designer came up with this idea while visiting her mother in Maine. After taking notice of the strong canvas material that made up the sails on a boat, she realized that this material would make a sturdy alternative material for bags and pillows all while saving them from going to landfills.