Friday 18 May 2012

go green


Go Green

A gentle disclaimer…

In green living, as with anything else, what’s easy for one person is much harder, or simply irrelevant, from someone else’s point of view. So take these tips with a pinch of salt, and stay true to your own perspective. Each of us in the West needs to find our own ways of reducing our demands on the world. You may find vegetarianism a natural and easy choice – or you may have strong reasons for carrying on including meat in your diet.
Some people find charity shops liberating and exciting places to dig for treasure – others have a horror of being seen wearing hand-me-downs. A homeowner with a relatively high income, but very little spare time, has different options from someone who has time on their hands but is worried about paying the rent and the bills. These tips are meant as a roughly graded, general lead into some of the many pathways of green living – not as a rigid list of “things to do”!


Clothing suppliers

The Green Choices clothes section contains lots of information regarding the environmental impact of clothes, ethical issues and greener options including more sustainable fabrics.
Ethical Consumer magazine published a guide to Clothes Shops.
The Soil Association gives information on producers of organic textiles and where to buy organic clothes. (PDF document).
Wear Organic provide a directory of retailers supplying organic cotton. UK retailers of organic cotton clothing include Bishopston Trading Company, People Tree, Gossypium, and Greenfibres. All the cotton that Patagonia use for their outdoor gear is organic as well.
You don’t need to sacrifice style to be eco, check out Rapanui. They use natural, organic fabrics made in factories powered by renewable energy with ethical and fair labour policies.
Hemp clothing specialists include The Hemp Store, Clothworks, and The Hemp Trading Company, which offers ‘skatewear, boardwear, streetwear, clubwear’.
Bam Bamboo Clothing is a UK manufacturer specialising in bamboo clothing. Also Wear Chemistry an ethical clothing company whose core ambition is to make sustainable choices in casual fashion more appealing and to change people’s perception of eco-clothing.
Buying fairtrade goods is a direct way to avoid supporting exploitation. Traidcraft includes fashion and accessories in its mail-order catalogue, and also has an online shop. Ganesha also have an online store, and sell goods bought from co-operatives and workers’ associations in India. a hunt

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