Eco Peeve Friday: Noise Pollution

It may or may not have snuck by you last week, but I skipped out on my eco peeve friday. So this friday I have chosen a broad eco peeve that will cover a few problems. Yesterday when I was walking home from the bank I heard some really intense base which I thought was coming from a ghettolicious car. When all the cars flew on by and the booming continued I dreaded to think that it was actually getting louder with each step towards my house. By two blocks away I already felt myself starting to twitch - there was a drumming circle going on and it was next door to my house. From the road I could see about 20 or so happy hippy ladies very seriously banging the shit out of giant drums, a triangle, and who knows what shaped instruments. While I am sure they were having a good time the whole neighborhood was being subjected to their personal live music taste (something similar to a High School Mardi Gras marching band gone tribal), and being an all drum band it was F@#KING LOUD. So noisy that other neighbors were screaming out their window in between songs, and coming outside scratching their heads in annoyed amazement. Amazed at how that many adults got together and agreed that it wasn't totally selfish to create seizure inducing levels of noise at 5 o'clock on a weekday, in an otherwise quiet neigborhood. In my opinion noise pollution is a real problem in modern society because there is nothing worse for the planet then shit tons of angry edgy annoyed people walking around big cities. I know from experience the more high strung I become the less patience I will have for earth friendly endeavours since I am too busy seething with disgust at the noise level. Drum circles in the middle of a neighborhood are on par with my major eco peeve LEAF BLOWERS! Leaf Blowers are insanely noisy, pollute like crazy and make no sense at all. With the lack of exercise most people get they should go ahead and try a rake. Or even better yet let the leaves stay where they fall since they naturally decay and fertilize soil. Wow, just like nature intended and without man made fertilizers!

If you have a noise pollution problem in your area, look up your local police & the noise pollution laws. When I called my local police, someone else had already called and complained about the same drum circle - um yeah, and the police DID stop it. I can say though just like any good defiant hippy drum circle once the police began to drive away they played one last closing ceremony song...more quietly.

Summer Flash: Hot Eco Bikinis

There are many great things happening to eco fashion, as it branches out of it's safe little cocoon and spreads it's wings into more fringed opportunities. Like how organic wedding dresses & organic lingerie were once a figment of only your imagination but now are an exquisite reality, sexy swimwear in organic cotton is no longer a fantasy. Not sure you believe me? Check out The Green Set blog this week,

where she is uncovering every eco swimmy in existence! Hooray! The hotties pictured here are by designers Kelly B and Machja. Machja is a rare thing in the US (exclusively at The Oko Box), and the only other chance of getting this hot organic swimsuit is in Europe.

I know the pics here don't look very beachy, but that's because there are no beaches in the smokey mountains - which is where I live. We wear our eco bikinis in the woods, in caves, & around muddy creeks and ponds. ;)

How Do You Get A Peach Seed Out A Peach Pit?

I got soooo excited when after I ate an organic apricot I popped open the pit with a nut cracker and out flew the apricot seed. I immediately filled a pot with dirt and leaves and planted it, then was on to the next piece of fruit. But damn, peach pits are like rock walls around the special prize (a little almond shaped seed), and if only it took three licks to get to the center of the peach pit! (Don't try that at home, it's poisonous.) I pushed, I chipped away, I tried to be all zen and meditate the seed out of there - but to no avail. How DO you get the seed out of the pit?
My new experiment is to soak it in a jar of water into a weak walled oblivion, so that the nut cracker will magically open the soggy pit with ease. Think it will work?
Does anyone have any suggestions?

Teen Finds Way to Biodegrade Plastic Bags In 3 Months

"May 22, 2008
Karen Kawawada
RECORD STAFF
WATERLOO
Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true.
After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them.
Now a Waterloo teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster -- in three months, he figures.
Daniel Burd's project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.
Daniel, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life.
"Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me," he said. "One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags."
The answer: not much. So he decided to do something himself.
He knew plastic does eventually degrade, and figured microorganisms must be behind it. His goal was to isolate the microorganisms that can break down plastic -- not an easy task because they don't exist in high numbers in nature.
First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create a solution that would encourage microbe growth. To that, he added the plastic powder and dirt. Then the solution sat in a shaker at 30 degrees.
After three months of upping the concentration of plastic-eating microbes, Burd filtered out the remaining plastic powder and put his bacterial culture into three flasks with strips of plastic cut from grocery bags. As a control, he also added plastic to flasks containing boiled and therefore dead bacterial culture.
Six weeks later, he weighed the strips of plastic. The control strips were the same. But the ones that had been in the live bacterial culture weighed an average of 17 per cent less.
That wasn't good enough for Burd. To identify the bacteria in his culture, he let them grow on agar plates and found he had four types of microbes. He tested those on more plastic strips and found only the second was capable of significant plastic degradation.
Next, Burd tried mixing his most effective strain with the others. He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce.
Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.
A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first.
Next, Burd tested his strains' effectiveness at different temperatures, concentrations and with the addition of sodium acetate as a ready source of carbon to help bacteria grow.
At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks.
The plastic he fished out then was visibly clearer and more brittle, and Burd guesses after six more weeks, it would be gone. He hasn't tried that yet.
To see if his process would work on a larger scale, he tried it with five or six whole bags in a bucket with the bacterial culture. That worked too.
Industrial application should be easy, said Burd. "All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags."
The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide -- each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.
"This is a huge, huge step forward . . . We're using nature to solve a man-made problem."
Burd would like to take his project further and see it be used. He plans to study science at university, but in the meantime he's busy with things such as student council, sports and music."

Via : kkawawada@therecord.com

Eco Bridal: Organic Wedding Dress

From high end couture designs in eco silk, 100% locally grown organic cotton, second hand gowns on auction and DIY, this is a joyfully fun list of all the cool organic wedding gowns there are to choose from! You don't have to compromise your style, elegance or celebration in order to make your day eco friendly - now there are so many great choices out there it will only enhance the beauty & solidify your environmental values. Whether your budget be large or on a shoe string there will be something for you in this list :)- and that is something to celebrate!
1.Designer Rene Geneva makes incredible, show stopper, eco wedding gowns and corsets (as pictured here)- using sustainable materials such as hemp, organic cotton, and eco silk. This is for the high end eco wedding, these ethical bridal dresses can price well into $3,000 range- but holy crap they are awesome!
2. Get Conscious makes extraordinary eco wedding gowns for every genre, from the clean lined strapless (as pictured), to the flowy Marilyn Monroe, Flamingo Dancing, Mermaid, and various other fun designs. Seriously, these dresses have character! Their prices start around $630 and go up well into $2,000 range for their eco couture styles. They also carry bridesmaid & groom gear.
3. Thread Head Creations -Choices! Choices! At Threadhead Creations you can choose from a handful of organic bridal designs already on the rack, or design your own dress, or even work one on one with designer Rai-Lynne to design your very own dream dress. All materials used are sustainable fabrics like hemp/silk blends. These dresses are very affordable (as far as organic weddings go) starting at $475.
4. Isadora has designed a beautiful stylish bamboo wedding gown that is absolutely gorgeous!!! This is for the wedding goddess in you. It runs about $750, which for an all eco wedding gown is pretty reasonable, or rather comparable to a traditionally made gown (aka-sweatshop/bad for the earth).
5. Wholly JO - Custom made eco wedding dress created exactly the way you want it, by someone who lovingly will help you design just the right one for you. Only drawback for gals in the USA is this designer is based in the UK - Prices start around $600. Check out her picture gallery for inspiration! For those in the USA, try Olivia Luca who provides the same personalized service as the UK's Wholly Jo.
6. Gaia Conceptions is an eco designer on Etsy, her organic Wedding dress is made with locally grown and milled organic cotton, this is a simple formal wedding gown that you can have custom designed, starting with this basic example. AWESOME price at only $250!!!
7. RawGanique- Not my favorite store (because they don't always return e-mails from customers and dang their website is cluttered), but they do offer a reasonably priced eco wedding gown for $369, made of fine hemp linen. And for those of you on an eco budget, this is one of the cheapest options on the market.
8. Spiritex - here is an article local to Asheville NC, where our local organic clothing/fabric maker SPIRITEX has added organic, bamboo, hemp and silk wedding gowns & bridesmaid gowns to their collection. Call to order & ask questions (828-254-8949) because their designs are absolutely stunning (see picture at the top with waterfalls of fabric). A must see for the eco-bride!( Green Wedding Gown Guide for Asheville.)
9. Blue Sky Bridal (for wedding accessories) - an eco esty store that carries pretty organic & vintage wedding veils, wraps, and corsets. Prices start as low as $35.

QUICK UPDATES: (July 2008)::: (Found these wedding dress gems on Sprig):::
www.adelewechsler.com - made with certified organic hemp and vegetable dyes.
www.naturalbridals.com - made of silk and sustainable hemp.
www.deborahlindquist.com - vintage lace, sustainable hemp and silk.
www.whitechocolatelabel.com - sustainable and organic materials.
www.consciouselegance.co.uk - hemp, silk and 100% pure unbleached cotton.

NOW for the part I LOVE... this section is the re-wear, second hand, vintage, charity donation, & DIY wedding gowns! Some are so affordable & you can get so creative with, you'll be dizzy with post marital giggles.

1. E-bay - for a crazy amount of used & vintage wedding gowns - sometimes priced as low as $5 ! Whoa that's freaken cheap and totally eco friendly! :) You can have your seamstress transform these old bridal gowns into new one of a kind creations, and leave almost no environmental footprint behind!
2. Brides Against Breast Cancer - This is the place to buy once worn and new donated gowns, and supporting breast cancer awareness ta' boot. They tour the USA with their collection, plus it currently says their online store is "coming soon". That could be now- so check it out :) (http://www.makingmemories.org/)
3. The Frock - Exquisite, stunning, fabulous vintage wedding dresses, that would make a drag queen shed tears! These though are not cheap, running $1,000 and way up. The selection is 16 pages long, and every gown is a complete showstopper.
4. ETSY - This is the place for everything affordable & handmade, making the carbon footprint lighter, and the wedding dress, accessories, and party supplies more intimate. Supporting small businesses who don't use slave labor & mass manufacturing processes will always be the more earth friendly option.
5. DIY - A great way to go would be hire your local seamstress who can wip up your pretty dream dress from a picture or pattern (look for vintage patterns on e-bay and at local thrift stores), and purchase the organic fabric online from a store like Near Sea Naturals - who sells swatches and samples so you feel it before you decide what you want.
Also look to Crafting A Green World, for a long list of fabulous eco fabric stores online. The types of fabric with the most traditional look and feel would be hemp/silk blends, tencel or eco silk.
Learn about how beautiful upcycling old clothing can be here. Try Amour Sans Anguish for inspiration!
Now go get yourself a saucy eco gown and get married!!! :)

PS- for some eco friendly party supplies try www.ecoparti.com , which carries earth friendly wedding favors including soy candles, natural soaps, and seed favors. They also offer tossing cones, baskets, freeze dried rose petals and biodegradable ecofetti!

Calling All Eco Fashionistas!

Yo! Here at The Oko Box, I wanna see how you sport your eco fashion - and am asking all you lovely oko box customers & those who wear your earth lovin' beliefs on your sleeve (literally) to send in photos of yourself flaunting your organic duds! Whether you bought them at The Oko Box, BTC Elements, NIMILI or made them yourself- Send your favorite pic of you to info@theokobox.com so we can feature your eco saucey self right here on the blog :) The best pic will win a $20 gift card to The Oko Box!

FUN ! This pic is of me & my kitty "Toots", in my organic Kelly B Bikini (my favorite organic summer item)- sporting a 80's side pony tail and totally tubular attitude! Yes!

Girl Reconstructed: Upcycling Old Clothes - Crafting A Green World

Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle! In the wild wonderful world of crafting you know these are our way of life, in spite of what the mega big box craft stores would like us to think. So this week I set a goal: what can I do with only thrifted pre loved materials? Second hand stores are gleaming with craft finds like retro sewing patterns, stacks of fabric, old curtains, sheets and clothes. Clothes that not even your grandmaw could love anymore…but what if all these things could be reconstructed into something new? Craftalicious designers like ....
Read the rest of this article at Crafting A Green World!

My Organic Garden...So Far

I want to give a little nod of recognition to my garden, for being so good :)
This year I started my organic garden with only a hoe, and no extra compost, no bags of special top soil, no hose, no rain barrel, & no metal rake. Just the dirt that was already there, a small list of plants that heart one another, and the king of all tools- the hoe. I have let the rain do most the watering, and occasionally I bring out the watering can if they seem rather parched.
And so far, this garden is kicken butt! I mean it is really rocken' the yard, with peas, kale, bok choy, radishes, squashes, cucumbers...
I really like to think, that nature provides and we don't always need to add alot to it. It's awesome the way it is.

Underwear Making Class In Brooklyn!

The ever so stylish, adorable and smart Supayana is giving a pantie tutorial over in Brooklyn, NY ... so all you lucky New Yorkers go sign up, so I can live vicariously through you!!!!

Announced on:

May 21, 2008 9:35 AM
Subject:
Underwear-making class next week in Brooklyn- sign up!
Body:
I'm teaching another underwear making class next week at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn next week.

Here's a link to the listing:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=44293 Message me if you have any questions!

Hope to see you there!

xo - Yana

Non Stop Green Light

Now this is amazing good news on the lighting without electricity front - you remember glow sticks don't ya? Those wild green cylindrical orbs you carried around at Halloween, parties, raves, clubs, or maybe like me during Mardi Gras!?! Well, the glow stick company has come up with a lighting solution that has fabulous implications for the future : a light that glows for over 12 years after exposure, which needs no sun or electric till that time has run out- then recharge. Whoa. Yes, this is unreal super sci fi news... and although I agree with some that the odd creepy green light may not be what we want 24/7 there are many applications & implications for this invention.

"Litroenergy is a patent pending designed light source material that emits light for 12 plus years- without electricity or sun exposure!
Our development/design of long-life, self-luminous micro particles called Litrospheres (non-toxic) emit light continuously for 12 plus years (half-life point) without any exposure to a light or other energy (not effected by cold or heat). This extremely low cost material offers 24/7 light, which can be injection molded or added to paint. It is 5,000lb crush resistant, stable and constant light source (gives off no U.V. rays). It is designed to give off almost any color of light desired. Our goal is to mass produce this material and supply OEM’s.
Litroenergy has potential to save billions of dollars in energy costs world-wide. Litroenergy surpasses all known available lighting options for cost/durability/reliability (12+ years) and safety. The uses are unlimited as the imagination; however we predict the safety aspects to be the front runner in application (light safety tape, lighted life rafts/flotation equipment, light safety markings/equipment, etc.). Supplemental light source will be second as the material is bright and one can read by it, if you have some Litroenergy lighting you will not need to always turn on a light source that requires electricity. The use of Litroenergy in toys, sports/camping equipment, bikes and novelty uses will be close in applications.
The fill rate of Litroenergy micro particles in plastic injection molding material or paint is about 20%. The cost to light up 8 ½ x 11 piece of plastic 1/8” thick is about .35 cents.
We appreciate this opportunity to introduce our patent pending designed Litroenergy light source material to the world. "

How would you like to see this lighting solution used? Porch lights, flash lights.....?