eco-chic design

biodegradable watches from corn resin, bamboo or organic cotton

Last weekend at the Green Festival I was amazed at the number of green companies that are based in New York like Sprout. It was cool to see the use of natural and renewable materials in their eco-friendly watches such as organic cotton, bamboo, and corn resin displayed at their booth. Corn resin is similar in its sturdiness to synthetic plastics but it’s 99% biodegradable in a compost environment and comes from a renewable resource instead of oil. Sprout’s eco-chic timepieces have bracelets made out of corn resin, organic cotton, or even fish leather from recycled fish skin. Other eco-friendly components include dials made of the rapidly renewable resource bamboo and lenses made from Mineral crystal that’s a type of glass made from sand. All eco-friendly and stylish watches use mercury free batteries. 

With summer season approaching quickly I love Sprout’s newly launched water-resistant watches. They make a great accessory for any type of eco-adventure like kayaking or getting caught in the occasional tropical rainstorm. My favorite is the 165 ft water-resistant watch with an olive colored corn resin strap and a black corn resin case and bezel. The dial is made of black bamboo and of course has a mercury free battery. I love the bold and functional looking design. For everyday city adventures I like the same eco-friendly watch with a white corn resin strap, a black corn resin bezel and a white bamboo dial. Very eco-chic.

fair trade and farmer-owned chocolate at Green Festival NYC

Over the next week I’ll be covering my eco-friendly design highlights from the Green Festival in New York City. I hope you had a chance to view my slideshow. Please tell me about your favorite eco-designs as well. At the event I was impressed by Ford’s interactive displays that demonstrated the use of sustainable materials in their new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. They illustrated for example how armrest handles are made of corn or door panels from wheat straw. The same was true for the biodegradable watches by Sprout that showed the use of organic cotton, bamboo, and corn resin. I’ll dig deeper into both eco-chic products soon but want to talk about my favorite subject first: chocolate.

Divine Chocolate had some samples of their fair-trade chocolate bars at the Green Festival. I was completely blown away by the amazing taste of their Coffee Milk Chocolate. To my surprise I bought two bars of it and one bar of the Orange Milk Chocolate. Divine Chocolates are made with 100% fair-trade cocoa beans grown by the Kuapa Kokoo farmers’ cooperative in Ghana whose members own 45% of Divine Chocolate. This ensures that the farmers not only receive a fair price for their cocoa but it also gives them a share of Divine’s profits. The design of the packaging is super-gorgeous with its golden traditional West African Adinkra symbols. Each symbol represents a proverb like “democracy & shared destiny”, “interdependence”, or “reconciliation & peace.” Divine doesn’t use airfreight at any stage of their supply chain to reduce its environmental impact. Needless to say that I’m already on my second Coffee Milk Chocolate bar but it’s truly divine.

my top eco-chic designs from New York City Green Festival 2012

To find out what companies are behind my contemporary eco-finds from today's Green Festival in NYC visit the flickr photostream in case the slideshow doesn't work in your browser. Over the next few weeks I'll also dive a bit deeper and give you more of a backstory on some of these eco-products. In the meantime here's why I like them in order of appearance:

• "Material change" - design thinking and the social entrepreneurship movement by Eve Blossom & Yves Béhar. Good read about sustainable entrepreneurship at ABC home & planet.
• SCOSHA jewelry. Handcrafted in Williamsburg using recycled materials. 
• Organic cotton "Poo Happens...!" baby onesies. Made out of 100% organic cotton and made in the U.S.A 
• Divine Chocolate. Fairtrade & DELICIOUS. 
• Ford's C-Max Energi. Fords new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle will come out in fall 2012. 
• SustainU clothing / American Recycled Apparel. Uses fabrics made in the USA from 100% recycled materials. 
• Wembé baby soaps. Organic aromatherapy skincare from the tropical rainforest of Paraguay. 
• Kids Konserve Ice Pak. Ice-pack made of recycled PET to cool your lunch. 
• "We Add Up" T-shirts. An organic t-shirt campaign that includes your support into the design.
• Playback T-shirts. Made of recycled materials. 
• Wool and the gang. DIY clothes made from 100% Peruvian wool. 
• Reusable gift bags by in2green. The printed labels encourge reuse of the same bag instead of wrapping paper.

I hope you'll get the chance to visit tomorrow. The Green Festival is a lot of fun with interesting lectures, organic and natural food tastings, or you can even test-drive the brand new  Ford Focus Electric.

contemporary Etsy designs that recycle, repurpose, and reimagine

As I was updating my mission I realized that I haven’t covered as many local or emerging designers as I set out to do. Hence my following short list of designers on Etsy that reuse existing materials and repurpose them in a contemporary way. Kudos to the green designers for keeping waste out of landfills and extending the life of existing products. Please let me know of any other finds to include on my pinterest board about ‘green craft ideas”.

1. Contemporary and colorful coasters made from reclaimed wooden branches by EarthArt. They are hand painted with soy paints.

2. Mini soy wax candles in recycled liquor and wine bottle caps by Eco-Imbiber. Each candle is hand poured using organic soy wax and cotton wicks. Super-cute.

3. Graphic hobo purse handmade in Hawaii by Manila Extract from a repurposed Kauai coffee sack. The front features a bold screen print of the Kauai Akialoa bird. Fun for summer!

4. Handmade cuffs from recycled leather by TrilbyMade. They are reversible and each side has a different color like orange or blue.

5. Modern graphic pillow with a mix of solids and paisley print by stitch & spoke. It's made from recycled fabric in cotton and cotton-polyester blends.

100% natural cleaning products for a healthier home and planet

Due to the warm weather lately I’ve been in a bit of a spring cleaning mode. As mentioned before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that the inside air of our homes is 2-5 times more chemically polluted than the outside air. That’s why I’ve been advocating eco-friendly home cleaners for a while. Now might be a good time to replace your existing ones with natural and eco-friendly alternatives. The greenest way would still be to clean your home with natural ingredients such as vinegar, baking soda, and olive oil. And you can with the Home Cleaning DIY Kit from Eco-Me. The 100% natural and chemical free tool kit helps you make your own cleaning products. It comes with reusable containers, pre-measured mixing ingredients and essential oils. The eco-modern kit makes a fun educational project for kids. But I’ve to admit that I’m a bit of a lazy environmentalist as so beautifully described by Josh Dorfman. I prefer the convenience of a pre-mixed bottle like the 100% natural all-purpose cleaner Bill. It contains no colorants or dyes, no chemical preservatives, no synthetic fragrances, no sulfates and no phosphates. This means fewer toxins in your home and the environment since they won’t get washed down the drain. As a big fan of design that makes a greener life-style more fun I like Eco-Me’s colorful packaging and bold silhouettes of people like you or me. The Eco-Me family line of products is a healthy addition to any eco-modern home.

eco-modern soy candles in gorgeously green wine bottles

Last year on a business trip to New Zealand I stopped by the cool design store Essenze in Auckland. My intention was to check out David Trubridge’s sustainable designs since I love his gorgeous lamps and furniture. Looking for souvenirs I was smitten by the NEW’D range of soy candles in recycled wine bottles by Living Candles. What’s so great about them is the crushed glass from local recycling centers inside the bottom of the recycled wine glass candle. It looks incredibly pretty and holds the cotton wicks in place when wax is poured inside the glass. I had never seen anything like it and brought one back to New York. 

The name NEW’D is a combination of keeping the production process as simple and ‘nude’ as possible while a small team of candle makers creates something ‘new’ from recycled glass. All candles burn for 55 hours and the glass is finished in such a way that it can be reused as a drinking glass. The 100% soy wax candles come in a cool box made of recycled cardboard. They are available in four fragrances: Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. And of course for beer lovers there’s a beer bottle design with a fern leaf embossed on an emerald green recycled bottle. The NEW'D range also includes a Bell Glass made from the top of wine bottles. Looks like the burn time of my Riesling eco-chic candle is almost up - maybe it’s time for another trip to New Zealand.

colorful baskets hand-woven in Rwanda to empower rural women

Maybe it’s upcoming Easter but these beautiful and graphic Rwanda baskets caught my eye at Macys the other day. They are part of the Rwanda Path to Peace collection whose sales provide sustainable income to the Rwandan women who create them. The Rwanda Path to Peace project was founded by the socially-conscious entrepreneur Willa Shalit in collaboration with Gahaya Links, Fair Winds Trading and Macy's. It was initiated by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) hoping to develop a market for Rwandan basketwork to provide income for rural women in a sustainable manner. 

The first Rwanda Path to Peace baskets were introduced in 2005. Since then they have changed the lives of many Rwandan weavers and their families. Many of them are now able to afford clean water, medical insurance and education for their children. The beautiful Rwanda Path to Peace bowls and baskets are created  with natural and renewable plant resources. The way it works is that the weavers harvest responsibly grown sisal leaves. These are split and peeled to get to the pure inner fibers that are then colored using natural dyes. Next the naturally dyed sisal is coil-sewn around bundled sweetgrass through an ancient technique used for centuries. In the end the 12-inch diameter bowls will consist of several thousand tiny stitches. What an impressive piece of craftsmanship and every one-of-a-kind bowl and basket is gorgeous. But my favorite is the New Africa Fruit Bowl with its modern and bold design. Happy Easter to all my eco-chic readers!

ECO-CHIC NYC: latest 5 eco-finds at ABC Home & Planet

This is my first post as part of a new column entitled "Eco-Chic NYC" that will be highlighting New York City based stores, designers, companies and tradeshows promoting sustainable design. Of course I had to kick it off with abc home & planet. The store is a sustainable design mecca filled with natural, organic, local, fair-trade, handmade, or recycled home and beauty products. I’ve always been impressed by the amazing job the company does as a curator of sustainable design while educating their customers. Throughout abc home & planet’s store and website you’ll find several icons which identify what’s green or sustainable about their product. It so happened during my visit that my eco-chic finds included several local companies such skinnyskinny and Jan Burtz. Both received the local economy icon indicating that their products are made within a 600 miles radius of New York City. They support neighboring community business while minimizing the carbon footprint of their products from transportation. That’s one of the reasons as well that I wanted to start an ongoing column with a local focus on New York City. Hope you enjoy my eco-chic short list. And please let me know what other local stores or designers I should check out.

1. Hand poured natural soy candles from Linnea's Lights. All eco-friendly candles have lead free cotton wicks. They are packaged in recycled materials printed with soy and water based inks.

2. Grapefruit bergamot soap from Level Naturals. The paraben and toxin free soaps are handmade on a carbon negative, organic farm in Hawaii.

3. Organic grapefruit and cardamom dry shampoo from skinnyskinny. Almost all organic bath and body products are locally made in Brooklyn. The company is 100% carbon-neutral.

4. Handmade porcelain by Jan Burtz. The one-of-a-kind designs are locally manufactured exclusively for ABC.

5. Sustainable pouches from Southern Journeys. The eco-friendly designs are made of up-cycled burlap sacks and hand died fabric from Ghana. A percentage of the sales will support SRBW (Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative).