I have learned to love flying in airplanes. I just decided, well, I’ve got to do it and c’est la vie. That mental adjustment has really made a difference and allowed me to actually enjoy trips. I just returned from New York City and the grand opening celebration of the new Edward Ferrell Showroom in the D&D Building. Edward Ferrell – Lewis Mittman is one of the few furniture collections still manufactured in the US – in High Point, North Carolina. Take a look at www.ef-lm.com. We are truly blessed to have representation in both Edward Ferrell Showroom and the Michael Tavano Showroom in New York City – www.michaeltavano.com. After several years of not being able to find a home, we now have two spectacular homes. If there were an award for the very best fabric presentations in a showroom in the USA, Michael Tavano’s presentation of our fabrics would be a leading contender. I’ll get some photos to post on this site. Michael has turned each one of our fabrics into a mock dress, with the fabric labels suspended by a ring of pearls at the “neck” and a belt that looks like a Hermes belt. Lovely, elegant and very entertaining at the same time.
At the Edward Ferrell opening I was able to meet the eco-designer, Cheryl Terrace; and the owner designers of the Carol Gratale Collection (that would be Carol) and Berman Rosetti Furniture (Nick Berman and Gennaro Rosetti) – which are also all manufactured in the US. We’re honored and lucky to be shown alongside.
It’s quite unusual for a fabric collection to be carried by two separate and prestigious showrooms; and we thank both showrooms for their willingness to break the mold.
Another highlight of my trip was searching fro a restaurant in the rain with Julie DuBrow, our indefatigable PR woman; and Michael Ekstract, the creator of Verdant magazine. After waiting a spell for a table at Sofrito, the decided to hit the street again because we were more in the mood for a quiet talk than a riotous band. We wandered and ended up in a place that I’m not sure was on Michael’s radar, but which was delightful Indian food on West. 52nd Street.
If you haven’t ever checked out this site, you should. Not only have they been very generous about sharing info on O Ecotextiles (http://designintuit.com/dev/index.php?page=o-ecotextiles#3), but wander around this site a bit and see some great houses and interviews. The crux of the site is sharing great design showhouses across the US. And their blog currently has a great process piece on creating a design showhouse room. Anyway…lots o’ intense design guidance, including some sustainability. Enjoy!
Ghandi said that we should be the change we want to see in the world. Some of the things I’ve read recently makes me think that that the youth of today seems to be really taking up that challenge – new research by the EnviroMedia Social Marketing indicates young Americans, an estimated audience of 76 million people, “will power the new green economy and are the key to future economic growth.”
More than any other age group, they say, 18- to 34-year-olds believe global warming is caused by human activities. Additionally, the research indicates Americans who believe in this connection are almost twice as likely to buy more green products in this economy than Americans who believe it occurs naturally. And the same study says that 82% of Americans indicate they’re still buying green products despite changes in the economy.
But what I got really excited about was to read about the Indian Climate Solutions Project. This group believes that there are many homemade solutions being tried all around India – the missing link is communication so we can all learn from each other and not have to reinvent the wheel. As they say:
In India, a nation of creativity, diversity and dynamism, inspirational climate solutions already exist in pockets, demonstrating significant co-benefits for the economic, social and environmental welfare of the country. They are however poorly documented, analysed and communicated in general. To avoid a replication of efforts, and to convince governments, businesses and communities to take action, these success stories need to be shared widely. India is a nation open to new ideas, with a strong intelligence, deep spirituality and profound respect for the natural world. As such, we, the Indian youth, believe that India can take a leadership role on climate change, for its own welfare and security as well as for that of the world as a whole.”
The India Climate Solution Project recently completed an epic five week electric car journey across India, aimed at launching a movement for climate action across India, reached its final destination, New Delhi, on February 4, 2009, though the work is continuing to document and spread solutions and a message of hope and change. The Indian Youth Climate Network team reached Delhi having covered 3500 ’low-carbon’ kilometers in three solar-powered Revas and a fleet of alternative vehicles.
The trip, which has passed through 15 major Indian cities, was undertaken in a caravan of alternatively fuelled vehicles including three market ready solar-integrated Reva electric cars, a plant oil powered truck, a van running on spent vegetable oil, and a car with solar panels on the roof to power the team’s equipment.
The team has documented ground breaking climate solutions, across every sector and many states, which they plan to share and scale up to be the start of a solutions-oriented movement for transformative change. The team has charged at petrol pumps during diesel strikes, visited tribal girls’ hostels where the kitchen runs on solar energy, worked with villagers making compost and biogas, found effective waste management strategies in Mumbai, and made dozens of short films about these solutions along the way.
From 90 year old women who have never left their village to international school children in Mumbai and Hyderabad and from respected NGOs to CEOs spreading their Indian innovations all over the world, the team has met with dozens of climate leaders who have shared their climate solutions! (See more about the solutions they found along the way on their web site, http://www.indiaclimatesolutions.com.).
Hi there…just found out we’re in eco-structure Magazine, in the “Innovators” section! If you haven’t read this publication, and you are curious about green building, you should. AND…Robb Report Collection for April, which comes with your Robb Report, gave us a FULL PAGE in their “Design Guide” section. BTW, April is their ‘green issue’, so check it throughout! We’re very thankful for this initial support from the media, we love that they see the beauty and value in our products. We also look forward to working with them to explain more indepth about how important it is to change the manufacturing process and educate everyone about the very serious issues of the every day, chemical-laden textiles most live with. Onward…!
The Environmental Working Group has a new campaign, to gather support for the new Kid Safe Chemicals Act. To understand what the fuss is all about, we’ve copied the page from the EWGs web site, below, but you can go to http://www.ewg.org/kidsafe and see what you can do to help. There is a declaration you can sign in support of the bill as well as lots of information. This legislation is sorely needed in the US – Europe has already passed it’s own REACH legislation, which mandates replacing approximately 2,000 known toxic chemicals with more benign models.
KID SAFE CHEMICALS ACT:
“The nation’s toxic chemical regulatory law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, is in drastic need of reform. Passed in 1976 and never amended since, TSCA is widely regarded as the weakest of all major environmental laws on the books today.
When passed, the Act declared safe some 62,000 chemicals already on the market, even though there were little or no data to support this policy. Since that time another 20,000 chemicals have been put into commerce in the United States, also with little or no data to support their safety.
The human race is now polluted with hundreds of industrial chemicals with little or no understanding of the consequences. Babies are born pre-polluted with as many as 300 industrial chemicals in their bodies when they enter the world. Testing by Environmental Working Group has identified 455 chemicals in people, and again, no one has any idea if these exposures are safe.
We are at a tipping point, where the pollution in people is increasingly associated with a range of serious diseases and conditions from childhood cancer, to autism, ADHD, learning deficits, infertility, and birth defects. Yet even as our knowledge about the link between chemical exposure and human disease grows, the government has almost no authority to protect people from even the most hazardous chemicals on the market.
This pollution in people is the direct result of a statute that does not require chemicals to be proven safe to get on the market, or stay on the market. Under federal law EPA does not have the authority to demand the information it needs to evaluate a chemical’s risk, and neither manufacturers nor the EPA are required to prove a chemical’s safety as a condition of use.
The Kid-Safe Chemical Act will change all this through a fundamental overhaul of our nation’s chemical regulatory law. Specifically, the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act:
Through the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act we can give our children a safer and healthier future.
Just in case you’re a designer or similar trade person and looking around in NYC, we are available in two terrific showrooms. Michael Tavano in the NYDC has been carrying us since Dec. 08 and we’re grateful he’s gotten so behind us! Ever been to his showroom? Great fun-a must see! And now we’ve been selected as one of several premier lines that are being added for the launch of the expanded Edward Ferrell showroom this April at New York’s D&D Building. We’re the first textiles co. to be invited into the Edward Ferrell showrooms, and Patty will attend the opening days of April 1st and 2nd, giving a talk on ‘why and how to choose green textiles’ (of course) on April 1st from 2:00 to 3:00pm. Please contact our PR gal Julie at julie@dubroworks.com, if you are in the industry and wish to attend.
BTW, Home Accents Today noted this opening: http://www.homeaccentstoday.com/blog/240000224/post/1120041912.html
And finally…this month, O Ecotextiles can be seen in Colorado Homes & Lifestyles, Architectural Products Magazine AND…HD Magazine!
Did anybody see the Goyard canvas shopping tote for sale over the holidays? It cost $1065, plus $310 if you wanted a triangular “recycle” symbol painted in gold. The canvas was advertised as being “100% recyclable”.
Let’s not go into all the ramifications of that one product, but I want to use this example to make one point: the perfect green product probably doesn’t exist – and maybe never will. We’ve all heard that the greenest clothing is what you already own, the greenest mode of transport is probably walking – you get my drift. Our product choices are all about compromises, and as Leslie Hoffman of Earth Pledge says, “making them with your eyes open instead of arbitrarily is the best piece of advice I could give.”
That’s why we at O Ecotextiles are so committed to spreading the word about what we’ve discovered about textiles and what each choice involves – in terms of our own and our family’s long-term health, in terms of the pollution burden imposed on our planet by the production of our choice, in terms of contribution to greenhouse gases which are contributing to global warming at a frightening pace, and in terms of the workers who made our chosen product (whether they’re children or laborers working under bonded conditions, working in unhealthful working environments). Your choices do impact you – maybe you won’t see an impact next week, but your choice does make a difference.
And lest you think that you – one small person – can’t possibly make a difference, remember what Margaret Mead said:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The new Children’s Environmental Health Center of the Mt. Sinai Department of Community Health and Preventitive Medicine (www.childenvironment.org) is looking into, as they say, a “whole host of diseases that come from toxic environments”, including: asthma, autism, allergies, ADD and ADHD, leukemias, brain cancer and birth defects.
The chemicals they focus on in the YouTube videos on their web site include those used routinely in textile manufacturing, and which remain in residual amounts in the fabrics: lead, mercury, phthalates, other synthetic chemicals; pesticides from the growing of the fibers. Check it out!
Soooo, we’ve just been posted/added by:
URL: http://www.greengamma.com
Title: Green Search. Green Directory: Search the green web! Support the environment. Think green. Be Green. Greengamma.com
If you have 2-3 min., we ask that you help make us a “Most Popular” listing, by going to the above site, clicking on the “CATEGORY: Home / Green Building / Architecture & Design”, and at the bottom of the O Ecotextiles listing is a box that says “Details”. Click on that and then you can either simply “Rate” us, or if you’re feeling prolific, maybe give a quick “Review”. We really appreciate anything you can do! THANKS!
We keep moving forward because of your encouragement, great questions, and similar concerns.
OEcotextiles 