While banana fabric might be hard to find, banana yarn is not. In fact we’ve talked about All Eco Banana Silk, a yarn whose fibers are hand crushed to get the material to spin.

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This spinnery offers many types of fibers, which are all hand spun and then hand dyed or painted in small batches.

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But using your hair, human hair, as fiber to create clothing can be done, as this woman from Romania has shown us. (Hat tip to CraftStylish for the story.)

Bistrita Nasaud, grew her hair from the age of 16 until it was 40 inches long so she could weave it and created nine items of clothing out of her hair.

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But does the rocker know about the importance of safety in cosmetics?  He has been spotted of late wearing a healthy dose of the black stuff on the covers of Rolling Stone, SPIN, Q Magazine and at the Grammys and the Brits. 

Well, Bono, if you have yet to discover the health benefits of using nontoxic makeup and skin care, let me point you in the right direction.

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While on the island of Chiloé, the second largest island of Chile, the majority of the artisans sold hand knitted items and hand spun wool. I couldn’t have been more delighted!

Chiloé was a magical place for me, the views of the ocean and rolling farmland with happy and healthy looking cows and sheep and chickens, were such a pleasure to behold. The island holds much lore and is seeped in tradition, with hand spun wool being one of these traditions.

In exploring the markets filled with handmade goods, many of the women would sit and knit, creating their wares as people browsed. Or they would spin. Several had spinning wheels and would spin their wool into yarn, right then and there.

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Just over a year ago, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Roxanne Christensen, co-founder and President of the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming. The Institute promotes Small Plot Intensive (SPIN) farming techniques first codified by Wally Satzewich, a farmer from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The idea behind SPIN farming is to give step-by-step instructions for creating a profitable farm on an acre or less of land in order to promote the development of local, organic food supplies. Through their method, even a 1/8th acre part time hobby farm can generate $10,000 – $20,000 a year with a full 1 acre farm bringing in $50,000 – $65,000 a year.

This year, they have come out with a SPIN gardening guide for the home gardener. It is not just for those with large backyards, either. Like the SPIN farming guide, it can be used to help organize community gardens and neighborhood produce co-ops. The original SPIN farm, run by Wally and his wife, is spread out over 25 neighborhood backyards.

The idea of the SPIN garden is to turn your home garden or neighborhood land into a significant, valued food source. The guide helps you understand how to grow high value crops – those that retail for more than $50 per harvest per short bed - and calculate the value of your harvest, so you know exactly what you are saving by growing your own organic produce. At the same time, it gives you a list of equipment you will need, and estimated costs, so you can garden like a pro. High value crops include heirloom varieties of carrots, tomatoes and potatoes, salad and mesclun mixes, onions, shallots and scallions, fresh herbs and more.

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I got one press release about a globally recognized brand, Fortune 500 company announcing that they are spending $3 million on green upgrades for their headquarters building. And that's not a bad thing; we love it when companies take green steps. But is it truly newsworthy, or is it closer to "greenwashing"?

Let's take a look at what they are doing. Their announcement talks of an "approximate $3 million investment in energy-efficient lighting and air conditioning equipment, rainwater harvesting techniques and advanced irrigation control systems." While $3 million sounds like a lot of money to most people, just because it's a big number doesn't make it significant. This company's headquarters building is over 2 million square feet. So they are spending $1.50 per square foot on these upgrades. Average energy costs for an office building are in the neighborhood of $1.50 -$2.00/square foot per year, and average annual maintenance costs are in the range of $2.00-$3.00/square foot per year. This isn't major spending, it's part of their maintenance budget.

To put this into perspective, if you live in a 2000 square foot house and you replace your air conditioner (which will almost certainly be more efficient than your current one just by being newer) for $3000, you are doing something equivalent to what they are doing. Buildings need to have mechanical equipment replaced periodically. Homeowners replace furnaces and air conditioners because they are old and inefficient and they break down, and it's no different for an office building. Routine maintenance and replacement of equipment is simply part of owning a building.

They're doing something; that's a positive. But it's not as much as they are trying to make it out to be; that's the greenwashing. Upgrading performance in a building is a good thing. But this could be little more than scheduled maintenance and replacement. Is it good that they are doing this? Absolutely. Is it newsworthy? In my opinion, not really. This is skirting close to greenwashing and trying to put lots of positive spin onto what is otherwise a fairly minor item. Having a green headquarters is nice PR, but companies need to take those approaches and spread them over all their facilities. That's a much larger (and much more newsworthy) step for them to take.