This weekend is Belle Chere, the biggest festival in Asheville NC. To overcome my fear of giant crowds, funky smells, and crappy music I decided to turn it into a eco treasure hunt where I would seek out the most eco friendly booths! (For a focused review of the green crafts check out my article at Crafting A Green World). What I was surprised and happy to have found was that 1/3 of the booths were environmentally focused - which signifies awesome change. Upcycling, recycling, saving parks & trees, petitions, native herbs for sale, eco crafts, biodiesel, and unplugged music....Here is a little sample of what I discovered along the way:
There were recycle bins everywhere! And the there was a whole booth dedicated to surveying people about their recycling habits. Only weird thing was the survey questions asked if I attended church, played video games, watched TV and enjoyed the outdoors. And then they were giving away free bottle openers and pens... I didn't get to ask if they were recycled.
Check out how much this cop is loving his little electric vehicle, he was smiling while he made little circles.
Eco minded Jackpot here! An entire booth dedicated to teaching about biofuels, and what Asheville NC has to provide.
Plus the biofuel "not a concept" car for people to look at- Yay!
The handmade, natural, and organic crafts were abundant. Romantic upcycled clothing, handcrafted soaps with essential oils, sculptures made from scrap metal, handbags with straps made from men's neckties, purses made from cereal boxes, necklaces from bottle caps and paper made from elephant poo! BTW, elephant poo paper has no smell at all.
There was a sampling of booths dedicated to charity & causes , like the "Hats For Humanity" and the "Save the Magnolia Tree".
But then as it seems all festivals can not resist, there are wasteful gigantic air pumped ads like this "Ingles" grocery balloon full of super bad junk food poking out. Sugar, pizza, peanuts and chips! Bleh.
At this point it finally began to get crowded, since I had arrived rather early to beat the expected swarms of people. Yikes, anxiety!
This is what I look like when I feel like there are so many people around that I might throw up, kind of pale and very serious. But check out the pretty wall behind me, and the "blood root" native plant I have in my hand!
Then I saw this happening (pic below)... if you have been to The Oko Box website you have seen some pics with vibrant graffitti in the background - this was that building, and it was torn down to the ground.
But I found these used red cowgirl boots at the second hand store called Madam Butterfly on Lexington Ave ... Yay! I think I will wear them everyday forever. (Btw- the tank dress I am wearing is made of hemp and is by Funk Divine on Etsy.)
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