Produce · Eco-Chick

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Free Trade? Give it to me Fair, Straight Up

I must admit, after having come back from Hong Kong in the midst of World Trade talks and Fair Trade forays, I need to do a few posts dedicated to fair trade fashion. I came across equop, a fair trade cotton and indie artist fashion label while in Paris this past October. Agrocel, Skal and Eko….No, that’s not the first names of the tattooed-punks down the street that you secretively find attractive (could it be the nose rings, tight black jeans, and bad-ass attitude?), but the rigorous certification that they go through, ensuring that their clothes are

Fair Trade
Inspected by a third-party organization, and
Organic

You’ll find other weird names like: Dangli, Droog79, and Mallalieu Nonot quite certification this time, but the names of the artists that have contributed designs to the tee-shirts…Who knows, maybe they have a nose ring. GOD I love personal expression.

Side Note: (I own Mallalieu, want Dangli’s Bird Shit shirt). Want to know how to get special savings for this line? Hit me up on my newsletter.

clothes, cotton, design, Fair Trade, Fashion, filter, fruit, jeans, News, Organic, party, produce, summer

Ask Chicky: Vermicomposting

3 Comments

by Starre Vartan · 11/22/05

worms

Dear Chicky,
I went to a dinner party last week and the host had a tiny composter in her apartment’s kitchen; she said there were bugs inside that eat the food she deposits. It sounds gross, but I feel bad tossing all my leftovers in the garbage—how do these things work? Why don’t they smell?
—Curious about compost

Dear Curious Composter,
All compost systems rely on the same principle: stuff rots and then turns into dirt. If you do it right. The good news is it’s not that hard to replicate what nature does on a grand scale in your very own kitchen. Properly composted food is never smelly and can cut down on your trips to the garbage bin (and the inevitable filling of our landfills). In fact, if you get into it, you can compost up to 1/3 of your household waste.

What your friend most likely had was a worm composter, also called a vermicomposter. This kind of composting is great for an apartment because it doesn’t take up much space, is totally hygienic and the final product is humus. Not the middle-eastern bean spread, but the ultimate fertilizer for your organic container gardening.

The busy earthworms, called red worms or manure worms, (yes, they wiggle, but no, you don’t have to touch them) will keep your composter functioning and odor-free. These special guys eat up to their weight in food every day, and their excrement is the aforementioned humus. Their casts (a nicer name for poop) contain all sorts of good stuff like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, meaning that the humus they produce will make your garden grow. And on top of all that, once your scraps are devoured by the worms, all the nasty pathenogenic bacteria (the kind that can make you sick) are totally neutralized.

But there are some caveats; you can’t just dump all your leftovers in a vermicomposter, but fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells, old bread, coffee grounds, shredded computer paper (no colored ink) and newspaper, and houseplant trimmings are all OK. Go light on the vegetable oils, dairy and meat; all these things take more time for the worms to digest, so don’t throw a big hunk of steak in your composter, no matter how free-range and organic it might be. Some people say small amounts of meat or bone will break down just fine, but it might take some experimenting. It isn’t complicated, by you will need to read up on the subject. You will need to keep the whole operation moist, and you can make your own or buy a composter ready-to-go at a host of websites and garden centers. The worms are also available online or from your neighborhood plant store. Try wormdigest.org, cityfarmer.com and cityknowlege.com.

Wormily yours,
Chicky

Ask Chicky, coffee, Easter, farm, Food, fruit, garbage, garden, Gardening, Manure, meat, News, oil, oils, Organic, paper, party, produce, spa, Tea, vegetable oil, waste

Crazy Capitalist and Enviro in the Same Sentence?

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by Starre Vartan · 11/22/05

Today’s NYTimes has an interesting article in a section I usually ignore. The front of the Business section has “Saving the Environment, One Quarterly Earnings Report at a Time.”

walmart
Wal-Mart uses a wind turbine to help provide electricity at a store in Aurora, Colo., as an experiment.

From the story by Dave Weaver:

A few years ago, scientists at Cargill Inc. learned how to make rigid, transparent plastics from corn sugars. There was just one problem: they cost a lot more than the oil-based plastics they would replace.
Plastic pellets derived from corn at NatureWorks. Some producers have adopted corn-based packaging, as the cost of oil-based products rose.
But that was before the price of oil shot up and companies came under pressure from consumers and investors to find economically sound ways to adopt “green” packaging and other environmentally friendly products and processes. This year, Wal-Mart, Wild Oats Market and many other retailers, as well as food suppliers like Del Monte and Newman’s Own Organics, all embraced corn-based packaging for fresh produce.
Sales at NatureWorks, the Cargill subsidiary that makes the plastic, grew 200 percent in the first half of this year over the period last year. “The early adopters were more influenced by environmental concerns than costs,” said Kathleen M. Bader, chairwoman of NatureWorks. “But now we’re competitive with petrochemicals, too.”
Cargill is one of several companies profiting from the concerns – of shareholders, communities and consumers – about global warming, leaking landfills and other potential environmental hazards. Huge companies like General Electric and Chevron now have separate businesses to market what they are calling environment-friendly products.
And new companies and university projects appear each day. Cornell University’s College of Engineering, for one, expects to have a commercial process for using bacteria to recoup energy from wastewater treatment within three years.
“There are a lot of creative types looking for the next big thing,” said Bob Sheppard, deputy director for corporate programs at Clean Air-Cool Planet, a nonprofit environmental education organization. “Well, these days, environment is it.”

That’s what I like to hear.

business, car, Chevron, corn, electric, electricity, Energy, epa, Food, Global Warming, Hair, NYTimes, oil, Organic, plastic, plastics, produce, sales, spa, sugar, waste, water

Tuesday Science Times Rehash

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by Starre Vartan · 11/22/05

Tuesday is has two redeeming qualities; it’s not Monday, and the NYTimes Science section comes out. A couple heartwarming stories from the last edition. Genetically modified produce is a flop, for both consumers and crop yields. And apparently, all that opposition to GM foods has really taken the mickey out of the biotech scientists. See, we do make a difference. Though now they’re making GM corn to feed to farm animals. Ew.

Bald Eagles are getting closer to being removed from the Endangered Species list.

Investors are finally taking windpower seriously, which is the good news. The bad news is that it’s because General Electric has gotten serious about it. Read why GE is not so great here. (Times article is actually from the business section.)