create something beautiful

Earth Cinema Circle Film Collection is likeNetFlix, but environmentally-charged. I first heard about the company through an article on Lime.com and I think it’s one of the greatest ideas ever. Much like the online video rental company that has caused conventional video stores to go bankrupt or close to it, this company charges a fee to have quality DVDs delivered to your door. In this specific case though, the fee is $17.95 plus $4.95 shipping every other month and for this you receive one DVD which has 4 or 5 feature-length and short films that feature a range of environmentally-themed topics such as global warming, saving the planet’s natural treasures, wildlife, ecosystems, green living, alternative building techniques, sustainable architecture, and solar power from great independent filmmakers.

Each video volume is introduced by Ed Begley, Jr. - actor, co-star of HGTV’s Living With Ed, and longtime environmental activist (in many incredible ways that include using bicycle power around the house!). The company is endorsed by The Conservation Fund. The packaging the DVDs are sent in is 100% recycled and they use carbon-neutral shipping. The film collection is also a Gaiam Company - a social networking company focused on inspiring.

Quoted from the website:
“The filmmakers whose work we feature on Earth Cinema Circle hope their films inspire people to get involved in the topics they have covered. One of our goals is to make it easy for you to do just that.”

A potentially great Christmas gift? I think so.

So remember when I wrote that post a week or so ago about the CO2 Stats Counter? If not, check out the post here to refresh your memory.

So I was looking at my Google Analytics account to see how my web traffic is doing on the site and noticed that I was getting quite a few links through the site. I checked it out and this is what the website looks like:

And if you look at the list of sites on the righthand side of the page, you’ll notice MY SITE listed second!

-xo-
one happy merb

I love Jennifer Squires’ beautiful, simple photos and her devotion to earth-friendly business practices. She has an Etsy store which sells pretty pictures of flowers, food items, and scenic views - most all of them shot using natural light with no fancy computer manipulation necessary to achieve images you’d gladly hang on your wall or place on your desktop. I kind of feel like each photo makes me feel calm and really hope I can achieve such a feeling with my photos in the future. Not only that, but as she states on her website, she makes every stride possible reduce her environmental impact by taking steps such as using using natural lighting as much as possible, using recycled stationary when she must send by snail mail, but making every effort to do her business online instead, using digital image proofs rather than contact sheets and chemicals, etc. Check out her website here to see her advertising portfolio and read about how she strives to save the world with every photograph she takes, and visit her Etsy store, where you can buy photoprints like these:

So yesterday I decided to stop at the Alessi flagship store just up the block from NYLON as I left work to head to NYU. It was time for my every few weeks splurge on a soy latte from Joe The Art of Coffee. Once it was in hand though, I met with a familiar problem, one that never comes up until it’s right in front of me and promptly forgotten when the coffee is gone - I’m already being wasteful by not brewing the coffee myself and putting it in a reusable mug, do I really need a cardboard cup AND a cozy? Even at Starbucks, where they proclaim on every cup and cozy just how much of it was made from recycled post-consumer products (only 10%), I feel bad using and disposing of yet another coffee cup. So I always falter and think before I grab a cozy as well “is it REALLY to warm for me to hold all by itself..?”

It usually is.

So today I vowed to find a nice knitted cozy I could buy and carry with me, just in case such a situation should arise. A small knitted cozy won’t take up much room in my already bulging bag and could even be made of organic wool, but best of all, it would mean no more cardboard cozies for me and a tiny bit less waste for the landfill.

Amazingly enough, I’ve already found not only the perfect cozy, but a seller who makes “eco-friendly” products knitted from perfectly good repurposed clothing - ie. sweaters unraveled for their yarn and used to makes hats, mittens, scarves, etc.

Hilo Verde has a small stock of items with adorable and simple designs at reasonable prices.

My perfect cozy:

I love all the easy things you can do to cut down on your waste and consumption, and the fact that no matter what I think of someone has thought of the exact same thing. It’s good to have like-minded company.

So while I was at NYLON on Friday, Faran got a press release announcing the introduction of a new eco-friendly line of Keds sneakers. Aside from the topic being near and dear to my heart, I got to design this fun graphic to accompany the article Faran wrote up for the website.

Here’s the breakdown about the shoes. They will be made of the following
100% Organic uppers
25% Recycled uppers
25% Recycled rubber outsole
Water based printing inks

They’ll cost $50 and $1 from every sale is donated to Artists for Humanity, a Boston non-profit charity providing professional art experience for the local community through after school programming. The aspiring artists designed a shoe to express their concerns about the environmental impact of bottled water consumption (water bottles are featured on the shoes!).

To further understand their concern and why you should make an effort to reuse your water bottles or, even better, use your own reusable/washable bottle, check out the facts on bottled water consumption:

- Four of every five plastic water bottles end up in landfills or as litter which is over 2.5 billion bottles a year!
- Water bottles buried in landfills can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
- Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts and the bottles themselves leak toxic byproducts into the groundwater.
- The plastic used to make water bottles is derived from crude oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil per year to satisfy America’s demand for bottled water.