UK Launches Recycle Week with Recycled Sculpture

While the Coca Cola company hasn’t always been eco-friendly (there have been rumors regarding pesticide use and Coke has been involved in battling some recycling legislation), they’ve also worked to help the environment.  The company has electric delivery vehicles and they’ve added wind power to some of their manufacturing plants.  Well, now the company has done something else—they’ve trashed the UK coastline with millions of aluminum cans!

But wait, before you judge the company harshly, know that this was planned.  Coke has created a huge recycled sculpture to celebrate and support the UK Recycle Week, the week between June 22nd and June 28th.  The sculpture is more than 50 meters across and is made completely from used aluminum cans.  The image created is from Coke’s 1949 summer poster and features a woman relaxing on the beach with a large bottle of Coke behind her.  The sculpture has been dubbed the world’s largest sculpture to be created out of all recycled materials.

Recycle Week and the giant sculpture were created to help bring more attention to recycling and what it can do for the environment and the amount of energy we use.  Throughout the rest of the week, various recycling programs and activities will be held across the UK.

In addition to creating the sculpture and sponsoring many Recycling Week activities, Coke has also launched an educational program promoting recycling and is actively working to create recycling stations in shopping centers, parks, and airports.  The idea here is to make it just as easy to recycle when out in public as it is when at home.  While aluminum recycling is certainly a part of these stations, it’s not the only focus: paper, glass, and other materials will also be recycled.

The Heart of Green Awards

The Heart of Green Awards are awards that are given out to some of the top eco-friendly organizations, companies, and people in the world.  These awards are given out by The Daily Green, a website that prides itself on being the consumer’s guide to going green.  They’re one of the most trusted websites for information and news about green products, methods, and just about everything environmentally friendly.  Because of this, they’re recognized as a site that can truly select the best green companies and people out there.  This year’s awards were given out by star (and Heart of Green winner) Maria Menounos at the Hearst tower in New York City.

So who won a Heart of Green award this year?  Well, the website Planet Green picked up the Influencer Award for its educational television programming.  Actress Alicia Silverstone was honored with the Green Gourmet award for her advocation of the Vegan lifestyle.  The author of the Green This! series, Deidre Imus, picked up an award, as did fashion expert Summer Rayne Oakes.  In the food production categories, Kitchen Gardens International founder Roger Doiron was honored.  The President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Frances Beinecke, was also named a Heart of Green winner.

A few other categories were determined by the Daily Green’s readers.  They were given the chance to nominate people from their own communities for the Heart of Green Local Hero Award.  This is a very special award since it goes to those who are making a difference at the local level.  Ohio teacher Greg Perry was named this local hero by introducing his Beachwood High School students to environmentalism.  His students created the ultimate green classroom and held an environmental expo.  eBay, one of the sponsors of the awards, was given the chance to select the winner of the Green Team Community, and they chose Jennifer Canty.  She is the owner of Dyscern, a company that reformats and resells electronic equipment instead of letting it go to waste.

Earth Day Festival Begins in Japan

The weekend of April 18 and 19 will see thousands of environmentalists and other green-friendly people head to Tokyo, Japan for the kick off festivities of Earth Day. The events will be held in the Harajuku and Shibuya districts of the city, and officials expect to see over 130,000 people in attendance.

The festival committee has spent many months working on the festival, which is the ninth annual Earth Day festival to be held in Japan. While it is less than a decade old, many are already calling it the world’s largest Earth Day event. Unlike some other events, the Japanese have focused on getting the younger generations involved and are not as focused on commercialism, although the event does have a number of corporate sponsors, including Patagonia, Tower Records, and Sony. Other groups, including Intel and the World Wildlife Federation, will be in attendance.

This year’s theme is “Go Ethical,” and to help spread this message, the festival food venders will be serving nothing but organic foods. Many local restaurants that specialize in growing food for local consumption will have mobile kitchens set up. The festival will also feature a Dish Reuse System that insures that there is zero garbage created from the event. This is huge since events like this often create hundreds if not thousands of tons of waste. In addition to organic food, many other eco-friendly farm products will be available for purchase.

If you live near Tokyo or want to jet over for the weekend, you’re in for a great time. The festival is full of live music, great food, and educational events.

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Eco Friendly Sneakers, Tennis Shoes and Trainers - the athletic shoe alternative to save the earth

The Skynde from adidas by Stella McCartney:
The Eco Friendly Child of the Barricade V

Clothing and shoe production is damaging the planet too!

It seems that in the last few years, the environment has forced it's way into most people's consciousness from the sheer weight of bleak predictions about the implications of rapid global temperature rise.

The gas-guzzling motor car has been in the firing line for longer, but now there is a growing awareness that everything we buy has a greater or lesser effect on the well-being of the environment, our fellow human beings and animals.

The clothing and shoe industries have long escaped any negative scrutiny, but recently it's become clear that their environmental impact is as damaging as any other. Many chemicals traditionally employed to treat and dye fabrics are carcinogenic and serious pollutants if allowed to escape to rivers and streams. This equally applies to the chemicals used to tan leather in shoe uppers and the petroleum based rubber used in the soles.

Consumerism and the move to the east

The problem has worsened with the gradual shift in production from the relatively controlled, (but costly), working environments in the West, to the low labor cost 'sweat shops' of some Asian countries. Here, human and animal resources can be exploited beyond the reach of the umbrella of compassionate and humanitarian health and safety legislation many of us take for granted.

The explosion in 'consumerism' in recent decades has fueled these changes as people, quite reasonably, want to enjoy the benefits of as many competitively priced products as possible. For example, if you're a woman tennis player, and you see your favourite tennis player, Ana Ivanovic wearing adidas' Barricade V women's tennis shoe on television, and your friend at the tennis club buys a pair, you are naturally inclined to want to buy a pair for yourself, (at the best possible price), to keep up.

The enormous multi-national companies catering to this demand know that to stay in business they must compete in every area, not least price. They must be keenly aware of their rival's like-for-like athletic shoe pricing.

The 'Big Boys' respond to heightened public awareness

However, with the sudden leap in the population's awareness of ecological issues, 'normal' business considerations for these companies have subtly changed, as evidenced by the recent almost simultaneous declarations by the 'big two' sports apparel manufacturers, adidas and Nike, that they are ceasing to source leather and other raw materials from any country where any collateral damage has been done to the rain forests. There's no point in designing, producing and marketing a fantastic sneaker at a great price, only to throw away many of these 'positives' by being associated with practises people now perceive as seriously detrimental to the planet and eventually even their own health and well-being.

To better align themselves with public opinion, both adidas and Nike now produce athletic shoes with eco-friendly considerations. The pressures have probably been slightly greater on adidas as it's a German based company, and Germany has one of the most powerful green movements in the world. In fact Germany's 'Blue Angel', formed in 1978 and composed of a group of 13 people representing diverse views across the media, industry, unions and the environment, was the world's first body that attempted to label products and services according to their eco-friendly, (or otherwise), content.

'Reuse a shoe' to recycle, reform and replace

However, Nike were the first off the mark with their 'Reuse a shoe' program in 1993. They collect old worn-out athletic shoes to disassemble and then to recycle and reform into a material suitable for the construction of running tracks, court surfaces and playgrounds.

They also manufacture the 'Trash Talk' shoe composed of shop floor off-cuts, leather and synthetic leather compounds and shoe soles composed of reformed rubber from recycled old athletic shoes.

The Stan Smith Grun Shoe, (German for green), is one of adidas' contributions to the growing demand for environmentally friendly shoes. It is a much greener version of an already successful mass-produced shoe.

How Green Can You Be?

Unfortunately, for any manufacturer aiming to be 'totally' eco friendly in their shoe production, the nature of the process is very complex and a wholly 'green' shoe is unrealistic for most, as the 'natural' alternatives would make the venture uneconomic. Many high volume shoes are produced with a combination of traditional raw materials with the more economically viable greener ones, which is a step in the right direction. (Excuse the pun).

A natural 'by-product' of concern for eco friendly shoe production is vegetarian or vegan shoes, as toxic leather treatments are replaced by less dangerous plant- based synthetic leathers. Indeed it could be argued that as 'animal agriculture' is the largest single contributor to global warming, these shoes are the only alternative to those serious about preventing it.

Certainly, farmed animals require a disproportionate amount of resources for the meat/leather that they produce compared to the plant alternatives, and the methane they readily produce is 23 times more efficient at storing the sun's rays than carbon dioxide.

Panda Food, Lady Bugs and Rice Husks provide some answers!

There are a number of smaller shoe companies that by their very nature are able to create products with next to no environmental impact. They use materials such as tree-tapped rubber, (not chemical), bamboo, hemp and organic cotton.

Bamboo and hemp are fast growing hardy plants that don't need careful nurturing or rich soils. Their natural fibers can be woven to produce materials that are hard wearing, water resistant yet breathable, lightweight and easy to clean. Organic cotton is produced without recourse to pesticides that eventually pollute many of the world's watercourses. Organic cotton farmers use natural pest control methods like introducing Ladybugs to their crops!

Boston based environmentally conscious shoe company, 'New Balance' even add rice husks to their soles to reduce the rubber requirement, whilst similarly aware 'Keen' add natural cork. New Balance also score environmental 'plus points' for keeping shoe production wholly within the US despite probable cost advantages of production overseas.

Some Seriously Earth-Friendly Businesses

Some shoe manufacturers center their entire businesses around an environmental awareness. A few worthy of note include 'Patagonia' who give 1% of their income to help preserve and restore the environment. 'Chaco' purchase wind-powered green certificates to cover their entire yearly electrical usage, and 'Toms' donates a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair bought from them!

All these companies seem to have core considerations that the earth must be protected, the people producing their products must be valued and cared for, and the end product must be built to last, to counteract the 'use it up, throw it out' culture that has prevailed lately.

It is vitally important that the trend towards earth-friendly consumption is not just a fad, and that some of the shortcomings of plant-based clothing and shoes can be overcome, like the difficulty in infusing strong colors in vegetable-based fabrics without recourse to nasty chemicals.

Even now eco friendly athletic shoe alternatives are mainly confined to sneakers and general use sports shoes, whereas specialized running, basketball or tennis shoes are still made the old way.

The mechanism of change, if it happens, will stem from informed individual decisions, which when taken en masse, will change buying patterns and reward companies brave and enlightened enough to give us the choices we want and need, to minimize the daily damage we are doing to our fragile planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Cheri Britton is dedicated to highlighting all that's best and new in women's tennis clothes, women's tennis shoes and tennis bags for women and any and everything of interest to a women who wants to look stylish and fashionable on court.
She's particularly interested in eco and animal friendly tennis clothing and footwear, especially the creations of fashion designer Stella McCartney.

What do you call the kind of people who wear eco-friendly brands, chacos, and other brands like patagonia.?

Also they like activities like mountain biking, kayaking, and climbing mountains. And please do not say hippie.

Fred?

Eco-friendly fibers: inside Patagonia headquarters