I’m not one to knock working hard and rewarding yourself with a few indulgences from time to time. I do draw the line, however, at overindulgence. You’ll still catch me rolling my eyes at anyone who aspires to one day own the infamous Hermès Birkin bag. Not only does the price tag start at $7,500, but the wait list to get one also averages two years.

Why, oh why, I ask myself, would anyone want to wait that long and pay that much to own something that isn’t even unique anymore? Yet, just as I say this, I discover the latest hot ticket. And yes, ladies, it just happens to be green. The Kooba tote, which is making its second exclusive debut at Barney’s, is made of unbleached organic cotton canvas with recycled metallic cork trim.

I have to admit, it is tres stylish and much more reasonably priced than the Birkin (only $245), but it's yet another “it” bag. If you’re lucky, you may be able to score yourself one online, but from what I’ve heard, the wait list for this summer’s most wanted bag may just rival its overpriced couture counterpart. To each is own, but I say get your own style and bypass this bag.

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During the surge in mod furniture in the 60s and 70s, Lucite was all the rage. Lucite, an acrylic product similar to plastic, was used as an alternative to glass. It showed up everywhere - from tables and chairs to bathroom tiles - and was popular for its vibrant luster.

The large amount of lucite products in circulation meant a lot of waste. But lucite is beautiful, and deserves a second life. Fortunately, designers agree. Jewelry designer Rachel Essex has a vintage lucite and plastic pendant collection (shown above). Be sure to check out her pink lucite. (Desiring something more clear? BUZZ has just the thing.)

But its not just lucite that's making a splash. Plastics are showing up in conscious jewelry at an alarming rate - alarming because it's hard to admit to having a preference for plastic jewelry. Batucada Paris has a line of jewelry made from low-impact plastics that is absolutely stunning. Yes - stunning plastic jewelry.

Things really are changing.

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Sometimes it's easy to choose the greenest way forward. This is one of those other times. Artificial grass: once a novelty affordable only by the wealthiest sports-grounds, it's now set to conquer the domestic markets as a green product. But which grass is greener - the real thing or the Brady Bunch stuff?

Near-Zero Maintenance. Save reservoirs of water (can't get greener than that), doesn't get churned up into ugly bald patches, and has a longer "life" than grass. It doesn't matter how eco-friendly your mower is - ditch it.
Gets rid of unwanted plastics. You're standing on recycled tires. (And no, if it catches fire it won't burn for a decade).
Hygiene-Friendly. SynLawn recently released a version that's porous and anti-bacteriological - music to the ears of pet-owners. Extra chemicals? An estimated 70 million pounds of pesticides and fertilizer dousing U.S. lawns every year? Not on this.
Is that a gasoline-powered mower I see in your garage? Oh dear - and you call yourself green.


Lawns just don't help the environment - they are the environment (pdf). Cleaning the air, sustaining microbial life, providing worms for birds, and so on. Take lawns away, and our suburban ecology falls apart.
It's your garden - it's meant to be tended. That's how you develop a relationship with it, one where you both grow. It's a living thing, not an inanimate appliance. (You work in I.T., right?).
When the sun's out, plastic turf heats up something rotten - up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, some say. Even if that insufficient to actually melt a plastic tire, surely the fumes will be toxic enough.
Lawns are carbon sinks: admittedly this is offset by their maintenance, but even so, the 40 million acres of American lawns filter in the region of 13 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually (estimates Brendan Koerner for Slate).

Difficult to know where to stand, isn't it?

Image: kevindooley

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Read through all our articles for the week? At a loose end? Curl up with a few of these...
The home of Good Housekeeping over in Harlem, NY, has had an eco-friendly makeover. LEED-certified, the new building opens July 30th and is running tours of the premises shortly after. (Ecorazzi gave us the heads-up).
CFLs: great while they're working, not so much afterwards. That mercury is a problem for consumers and recyclers alike - so let's applaud Home Depot, since as Grist reports, the biggest DIY store in the States now collects CFLs for safe recycling.
Amanda Melodini's article here (great title) tells of the latest innovation in air filtration: it's called a plant. (In fact, the breakthrough is all about aerating the leaves and roots so the plant can filter as much air as possible).
Curling up with a good e-book? However eco-friendly, it's a hard sell - but Sony is amongst the companies trying hard to change our minds. Gabrielle at Daily Tomorrow got hold of the Sony PRS-505 E-book Reader. Have a read of her very thorough review - is it worth the $300 price-tag?
Is this the ultimate faucet? It's touch-free, and when the water comes out, it powers a turbine that generates electricity for the touch-free sensor!
With some people, it's shoes. But the latest chic-to-collect is the tote bag. If you're one of them (and you're not alone by any means), don't miss the Savior bags - decorated with a quote that you may recognize.
Here at Ecosalon we like to keep up with the latest in stylish and practical technology. May we introduce the Solar-Powered Bra. (And also point out that those two sentences have nothing to do with each other. Thank you). As usual, it's Environmental Graffitti keeping us abreast of things.
Being fans of Nigel's Eco Store, we were delighted to see the man himself has given an interview with Adam over at Life Goggles. (You even get to see him juggling flying saucers).
EcoStreet has 10 suggestions for looking swish as you cycle. Unsurprisingly and entirely correctly, "Not Wearing Tasteless Lycra Outfits" is right at the top. Wild applause.
Old wax crayons kicking around, edging nearer the trash? Grab them, read Hippyshopper's article, and get sculpting.

Happy reading!

Image: gripspix

Here's one for you business owners. It seems everyone's aware of the wisdom of tote bags - even the plastic-mad British are wising up to the damage urban tumbleweed wreaks. So let's sing the praises of reusable tote bottles. Why the business angle? Because they're the savviest of marketing tools!

Plastic drinks bottles were always going to be trouble. (Ask Carmen Salva). The logic is damning: since they're designed to be throwaway, they're made super-cheaply, encouraging corner-cutting in the interests of profit-making. Counter-argument: they're thrown away before the chemicals do the consumer any damage. Counter-counter-argument: disregarding the toxins released when they degrade or combust, the argument still doesn't hold any water. So let's save some time and label them a menace, period.

Tote bottles are the way forward - and the way to look progressive and responsible. Business owners, take note: a custom tote bottle from companies like KleanKanteen or SIGG can be emblazoned with your logo, effortlessly improving your green-cred any time your customer gets thirsty. (Beware, though: bottles from, say, Nalgene still use the B.P.A. that has everyone worried. So, choose wisely).

And why not supplement it by following the German retail model - at the office canteen, add an extra charge to the price of plastic-bottled water, redeemable when the bottle is returned for recycling.

Image: judepics

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A summery weekend ahead - and there's no real excuse to be indoors during the day (no arguments, please). But if you find yourself online just now, here are a few links worth a read:

Whip Up are keen for us to reap the benefits of the homemade and the handcrafted: be sure to make some time for them.
Shown above: sea kelp is everywhere! Mostly in the sea, of course, but here on land we keep bumping into great sea kelp products (for example, in our first linky feature) - and now there's this Natural Hair Wash with Sea Kelp and Organic Kelp Shampoo Bar over at Pretty By Nature. It looks like chocolate. Can you eat the stuff as well? (Aha!).
Tracey "Tao" Oliveto has been looking at alternatives to plastic shower curtains (and finding that even antibacterial hemp needs a through-breeze to stay pristine.
Over at Grist, Katharine Wroth is getting in a lather over green dish soaps. Me, I like being up to my elbows in Ecover.
Shown above: Solar-powered gadgets over at Re-Nest: love the oven, not so convinced by the lighter (what's wrong with these?).
Recyclable plates that survive the microwave and the freezer....and they're made from fallen leaves and water? Yes, really. (Thanks, Triplepundit).
It's true - you can make notebooks out of anything - and as this article shows (found via Hippyshopper), that even includes tea tins.
Shown above: how much do we love recycled shipping containers? Answer: lots. Therefore we're floored (and walled and ceilinged) by the sheer genius of the illy Quick House, reported on by The Style Files.

We like the recycling suggestion by Tracey Stokes at eco street - turning washing machines into furniture! (Using up discarded items other people don't look twice at - that's classy).

Vanessa at GreenAsAThistle has just finished her 365-day lifestyle makeover. Wander back through her archives (here's day 1) and see how she found the experience.

Enjoy the sunshine!

While recently scouring the internet for great eco fashion finds to blog about, I discovered a few designers who are turning vintage camera parts into wearable accessories. Now, I certainly wasn’t the first to discover Craig Arnold, the Aussie whose passion for cameras and recycling led him to develop his re:vision collection of “camera cuffs.” I give credit to the folks at Gearfuse, GeekSugar, Inhabitat, and Five Non Blondes for scooping Craig’s work, but I’m going to go one step further and give you more than just a product write-up.


In my research, I also found artist Debra Dresler’s camera lens watch on 3r Living. A common trend in creating eco-friendly jewelry, turning non-traditional materials and everyday objects into accessories is no new idea. But, here’s what I’m wondering – is vintage camera part turned accessory a new eco-fad? While I personally don’t love any of these looks (although you may just catch me in one of Craig Arnold’s simple cuffs), I do appreciate original concepts and unique finds. I also have a few friends who would go gaga over these picks.

I think I’m still on the fence about this one, so I’m going to leave it to you to decide. Is it rad or bad?

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If you're like me, sometimes you suffer from the recycled blah's. There are so many crafty products out there made from the same recycled items that over time it can get a bit boring.

This fantastic light fixture is just what I needed to pull me out of the rut. There is something very pure and lighthearted about the design. Composed of an old metal coffee filter and a jam jar, designer Angele Riguidel thoughtfully reproduced these items into a working light fixture perfect for a kitchen. With light as her inspiration, Angele seeks out vintage household items she can recuperate into what she calls ULO's a.k.a. unidentified luminous objects. 

Buy one of her ULO's from The Collection, a small French boutique, pop in an energy saving LED bulb and you've just relieved yourself of the recycled blah's! (85 €)

Image: The Collection

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If you happened to be driving through the desert outside of Joshua Tree California and suddenly came upon Noah Purifoy's 7 1/2 acres of desert sculptures, you might think you'd stumbled into Burning Man after a mysterious, mass alien abduction.

Strange structures emerge from the sun-bleached landscape and burn themselves into your retinas. There is no sound save for the wind rustling through constructions made of discarded rain gutters, bicycles, chicken wire, glass, and old porcelain bathroom fixtures. There are no humans, no cars - nothing but you, the sculptures, the bees, the bunnies, and the wind.

It's a little creepy and a lot mind-blowing. Purifoy started creating assemblage sculpture in the 50s and this spot in the desert was the culmination of his life's work. His art includes commentary on our consumer culture, racism, and other social problems, as it incorporates materials that would have otherwise been trash.

As I walked through the landscape of discarded detritus, I was stricken by how us humans impose ourselves on nature. But nature still has the upper hand. Bees and birds find places to build nests within the structures and life goes on.


Purifoy died a few years ago, but the Noah Purifoy Foundation continues to protect and preserve his work.

Images:
Structure, Nest: Vanessa Barrington
Legs: Susan Fleming

Pitchers: they're back. True, they were never "out", but I'm seeing them everywhere. With summer around the corner, weekend afternoons on the patio with friends will soon require fruity, refreshing cocktails pouring from your favorite pitcher.

This lip-smacking concoction from Epicurious is sure to make your taste buds dance.

Negroni Punch

Put four cups of assorted organic fresh fruit (like melon, apple, peach, cherry, and orange) into a pitcher. For extra sweetness, add a couple tablespoons of sugar (you can use agave or honey) and stir. Mix in two bottles of Prosecco (mmm) and one cup of Campari, a little sweet vermouth and gin, and quaff!

To serve this tasty beverage in ultimate style, check out this eco-friendly selection of pitchers:

Find decorative, recycled glass pitchers like this one at Great Green Apple.


The slumping, recycled glass dent pitcher is a smoked glass sensation at Branch Home.


And who could resist this bohemian beauty? Reminiscent of the tinware of yesteryear, this floral enameled pitcher comes in lots of juicy colors at VivaTerra.