The Petal Project
http://petal-project.com/
![citymaus:
Did you know the SF Bicycle Coalition turned 40 [last] year? Here’s a great pic of some of our early members in a 1972 Mademoiselle piece about biking!
sfbike, 23.11.11.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyw7ukxnrS1qcopw0o1_500.jpg)
In the spirit of the Super Bowl, there’s this repurposing find:
Football leather made into cuff links.
(via bottomofthe9thonline on Etsy)
Related: Last year’s (2011) Unconsumption Super Bowl/football-related post here.
See also: Super Bowl football-related trivia, from Wilson Football’s Web site here.
How to keep a green, vegan kitchen
Most people are surprised to learn there might be whey (milk curd runoff) hiding in their paper towels, or that their hand soap is harboring tallow (rendered fat), or that there’s lanolin (sheep’s wax) lurking in their upholstery polish. Animal by-products are a direct result of the factory farming machine, and that’s why ethical and environmentally-minded individuals, regardless of diet or lifestyle, are making the move towards natural, plant-based products.
2012 weddings will be greener, less expensive and more intimate
Maybe it was one too many in-your-face episodes of “Bridezillas,” or maybe it was Kim Kardashian. Whatever the precipiating factors, after a decade of damn-the-budget, over-the-top, weddings-as-competition, the trend for weddings in the coming year seems to be the opposite: Budget-appropriate, classy and even a bit more mature.
How to clean glass with black tea
What can tea not do? We tested it as a DIY glass cleaner and got great results.
High-powered plasma turns garbage into gas
Recycling is all well and good.But it hardly addresses the real problem we have with our household waste: We throw two-thirds of it in landfills while somehow managing to feel virtuous that we put last night’s empty wine bottle in the recycling bin. Surely we could do better, environmentally and economically.
There is, in fact, value in trash—if you can unlock it. That’s what this facility in northern Oregon is designed to do. Run by a startup called S4 Energy Solutions, it’s the first commercial plant in the US to use plasma gasification to convert municipal household garbage into gas products like hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can in turn be burned as fuel or sold to industry for other applications.
Photo: Kevin Van Aelst
(via nocarbon)
5 cheap ways to save 1,000 gallons of water
Water is humanity’s most valuable resource. Want to green your usage? These ideas cost next to nothing and can each save 1,000 gallons a year.
(via onearth)
Climate change gives gardeners new options
The USDA has updated its planting-zones map for the first time in 22 years, reflecting a warmer U.S. where many southern crops are expanding north.
The first month of 2012 is almost over, but it’s still difficult to envision what this
year will look like, especially when it comes to the interaction between consumption and sustainability. One of the people who came for our help is Raphael Bemporad, the founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer of BBMG. He offered on Sustainable Brands a list of five trends that he believes will shape sustainable brands in 2012. This is a great list and we’d like to share it with you, adding our point of view as well as two more trends to watch for.
1. The Ubiquity of C2C
“In 2012, we will experience a fundamental paradigm shift from a business-to-consumer (B2C) marketplace to a consumer-to-business (C2B) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace -where creating, buying, selling and sharing products and services will increasingly be driven by consumers themselves.”
This is part of the transition to a green consumption 2.0, where consumers are swapping, sharing, and collaborating to find affordable solutions to meet their needs. It’s based on user-friendly digital platforms and grows exponentially also thanks to added values, such as the sense of community or satisfaction from making a better use of resources. These added values provide a good chance to see this trend growing even if the economic climate will (hopefully) get better this year.
2. The Rise of Generation “Why?”
“The rise of the C2C marketplace is driven in part by the influence of values-aspirational, practically minded New Consumers looking for brands that deliver total value: products that work well, cost less, last longer and do some good. Youthful, educated, wired and mostly female, this New Consumer is asking “why” they should care about brands.”
While most of the New Consumers probably agree on the first three characteristics of value in products (quality, cost, lifetime), only third of them “strongly agree that it’s important to purchase products with social and environmental benefits, even in a tough economy.” So the bottom line is that green benefits will probably be in 2012 a nice to have and not a necessity, even for this progressive generation.
3. The Race to Relationship
“We believe 2012 will see a race to relationship, where the most successful brands will break free of the lowest-price trap and deliver more value by empowering consumers with better products and experiences and championing their success.”
