Green Patchwork

I work at a small locally-owned children’s clothing and toy store called Wild Child. About 27 years ago Renee West opened the store as a result of not being able to find non-branded cotton clothing for her kids. She was also frustrated by the fact that all the toys being sold for children were made of plastic, required batteries, and broke easily. Read the rest of this entry »

Just recently, Jonah and I stopped using commercial toothpastes because we were reading so much negative information about them. We were using higher quality fluouride free/ sugar free natural toothpastes from the natural foods store, but even those toothpastes had unfavorable ingredients in them. The main ingredient in almost all commercial toothpastes that is harmful to teeth and gums is glycerin. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are conscientious about the foods you eat and are a label reader then I hope you do the same when it comes to the products you put on your skin. Anything you put on your skin is the same as putting it into your body and just like there are a lot of foods out there that are harmful there are a lot of skincare products that are harmful. Even if the label says it’s natural, organic, or herbal doesn’t mean it really is. Buying truly safe and natural skincare is harder for me than shopping for natural foods, because with bodycare products you have all these long and scientific names and you don’t know what the heck they really are. Luckily, there are people out there that write books about natural shopping and start watchdog organizations to protect the public from unsafe activities. Read the rest of this entry »

I have had a lot of people looking at my posts about felted sweater crafting, and realize that I should include a post about recycling the actual wool sweater for the yarn. Quality wool yarn is pretty expensive, but if one were to buy a nice wool sweater at the thrift store for about $7 and unravel it you could potentially get about 2 pounds of yarn which would cost almost $80 new at the yarn stores. (I’m basing that on a 3.5oz.  skein of Irish wool yarn I bought recently for $9.50.) Read the rest of this entry »

I just stumbled upon an interesting link for fair trade condoms. French Letter condoms are made in the UK under the same fair trade conditions applied to products such as coffee, chocolate, and bananas. Now workers in rubber plantations can enjoy the benefits of fair wages and good work conditions while you enjoy the benefits of French Letter condoms.

After a Capri Sun juice drink is drunk the container gets thrown away and sits in a landfill for decades or centuries. When I was a kid I loved these juice drinks and their convenience, but I never thought about what happened to them once I threw them away. Kids love these drinks and I bet if we went to a local elementary school we would find tons of these empty containers in the trash.

A women’s cooperative in the Philippines has found a useful solution for these bags and created a business out of it, called Doy Bags. They collect, wash, sanitize, sort, and sew these drink containers into functional bags that are also stylish and fun. The cooperative uses the bright colors and designs of the drink containers to their advantage by sorting and sewing them accordingly.

Wild Child kid’s clothing store on Monroe St. has a good selection of Doy Bags if you would like to have a look at them up close and see for yourself how unique they are. Renee at Wild Child uses her personal oversized Doy Bag totes for grocery shopping.

According to Caboodle Cartridges’ website, it takes approximately 3.5 quarts of oil to manufacture one printer cartridge and it takes about a 1000 years to decompose. When ink cartridges are thrown into landfills toxins from the inks and chemicals used to make the cartridges seep into the groundwater and soil and cause more pollution. Instead of throwing your cartridge away have it refilled. I started taking my printer cartridges to Caboodle some years ago and I discovered that along with not polluting the landfills I am also saving money. When I take my empty cartridges to Caboodle I exchange my empties for new ink cartridges that are compatible with my printer and I pay about the half the cost of new cartridges. You can read more about Caboodle’s cartridge procedures at their website.

Madison’s Caboodle store is located at 2858 University Ave in the University Station plaza, next to Dairy Queen and the old Magic Mill.

Not every city has a Caboodle, but there are other companies recycling ink cartridges. Just do an online search to find your nearest retailer. A little time and searching is worthwhile in the long run, don’t give up and throw out your cartridges. Think about the future generations everytime you throw something away.

The other day I wrote a post on fair trade businesses that work directly with artisans in communities that need an economic boost, but I forgot to add A Greater Good to that post. When I worked at Whole Foods we started selling A Greater Good products and it was the first time I had seen such a company or such products. The companies mission is to provide a fair economic outlet for otherwise marginalized producers and create market and consumer demand for ethically sourced products and supplies. Artisans from around the world create beautiful textiles, jewelry, and other small gifts while earning a fair wage for their work and you get to shop while supporting them. I love the woven scarves and the chunky beaded jewelry.

Another place in Madison where I have seen A Greater Gift products is the University Bookstore. Let me know if you have seen it anywhere else, I’d like to know.

I love finding out about businesses that use reclaimed materials to create new products or repurpose materials and save them from the landfills. If you are remodeling your home or just want to make some small changes but don’t want to spend a lot of money or buy brand new stuff then a great place to visit in Madison is Habitat ReStore. I volunteered for them some years ago to find out what they did and had a lot of fun while I was doing it. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone enjoys shopping and finding unique treasures to keep or give away as gifts, but the items that we buy usually do not reflect the real price. The real price of an item would reflect the cost of gathering the raw materials which can be economic, ecological, and social. Our natural resources are invaluable, but they are often exploited for short gains and leave lasting marks on the environment. Read the rest of this entry »